Beginning of Legends
by GillianZonder
Summary: It all started 10,000 years ago, with a young man named Wan. He was the first to master Fire, venture into the Wilds, and become the first Avatar, Master of all four elements, the bridge between the human and Spirit worlds, the keeper of balance: this is his legend.
1. Thief in the city

**Beginning of Legends**

Description: it all started 10,000 years ago, with a young man named Wan. He was the first to master Fire, venture into the Wilds, and become the first Avatar, Master of all four elements, the bridge between the human and Spirit worlds, the keeper of balance: this is his legend.

_Author's note: yes, we all liked the 'Beginnings' two-parter, didn't we? I'm one of the fans that think Wan deserves his own series. Instead of waiting for the creators of Last Airbender and Legend of Korra to make it (if they ever will), I'm writing my take on Wan's legend. Why? Because I can. And I want to share it with other fans. I hope you'll like it. _

_The story kicks off where Beginnings started to show Wan's story and it goes without saying that alot of my inspiration comes from those two episodes. All the scenes will come back in this story, but I plan to make them longer and more detailed. I will also add alot of new scenes, of course. Beginnings was great, but the creators didn't have enough time to tell us everything. So here it is (or at least what I think fits best for the universe and characters). I hope you'll enjoy it, please leave a review if you can._

_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters and names of Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. No need to sue._

**Chapter 1: Thief in the city**

There he went again, running for dear life, heart pumping, blood rushing, the wind blowing in his face and hair. It was still early in the day, so the street was fairly empty and he had all the room he needed to make some speed. The few people out on the street looked in surprise at the skinny teenager in scruffy clothes whizzing by.

"Hey, come back here!"

Of course he'd been caught stealing a bag of rolls from the storage of the Chu's palace. Luckily, he got away just before the three sons of Elder Chu had had a chance to actually catch him. They were chasing him now, but since they were heavy and not very used to much physical activity, the odds were in his favor. He hoped. They did have weapons and they knew the city well, too.

He suddenly skidded to a halt, rounded a corner and jumped on a low wall on the edge of a building, intended to make an escape. He turned around, just in time to see the three Chu brothers come around the corner, too, sweaty and panting.

"You're dead, Wan!" the oldest Chu yelled.

"Really? I'm actually feeling quite alive!" Wan saluted the trio and let himself drop from the building. He landed on a rope with washed clothes while falling down, hoping it wouldn't snap under his weight. It didn't, and he used the momentum to launch himself onto a window pane. The Chu brothers came right after him, but the ropes all snapped, sending them falling to the ground, followed by drying laundry and a satisfied looking Wan. While they were busy getting up, he made his escape.

He climbed on the roof of a house, and ran and jumped to the next rooftop,and ran and jumped to the next rooftop, let himself fall again onto a lower roof and slid off it. He was sure he'd get away this time. But the Chu's found him again while he was crossing the bridge to the lower parts of the city. He sent some pigeons flying, hoping to distract the brothers. It seemed to work, since he heard a yell and the sound of bird poo dropping on people. He almost even stopped and turned around to see their faces. Instead, he made his way down an alley, up another roof and finally to a small backstreet with a dead end.

Catching his breath, he sat down against the wall and opened the bag of food he'd stolen. It all smelled delicious. He put some rolls in his clothes just to be sure, but the bag was pretty full. He could eat a whole week and not feel too hungry if he got this back home.

Just as he was about to sink his teeth into the biggest, tastiest looking roll he could find, the Chu brothers found him. They had angry looks on their faces and they held up their polearms menacingly.

Wan felt his heart sink but he wasn't going to give up that easily.

"Hey, fellas! Just in time for lunch!" he said and threw the roll he was going to eat right in the middle Chu brother's face. He jumped and ran, hoping to escape during that small distraction, but he caught his foot on something and fell. The youngest Chu brother had tripped him with his weapon. The oldest grabbed Wan's clothes and pulled him up.

"Guess you're all out of ideas now." he said. Wan just managed to grin uncomfortably.

Next thing he knew, they had taken the bag of food and thrown him over the city wall into a farmer's pig sty. Wan sighed, sat up and tried to rub the mud of his face and clothes as best as he could. It looked like he'd have to skip a few meals. Again.

He made his way back to the shack in the trees he lived in in the lowest parts of the city. It was small, barely had any furniture and he shared it with two others, but he could call it home and it was where his two only friends were.

Jaya was just a poor kid like himself, with no connections or riches to allow him to live in the upper parts of the city. Yao was an elderly man that once lived near the Chu's palace (or so he claimed) but due to his disfigurments, he had been cast out. Wan didn't know the details, but Yao had once got himself lost in the dreaded Spirit Wilds. There, he had been attacked by a Spirit and was left looking like he was being eaten by a tree. He could even grow leaves. He hardly talked about it and when he did, he had a sort of a panic attack and you couldn't get much that made sense out of him. Wan had found him looking for food around the shack one day. He had felt sorry for Yao and decided to let him live with him and Jaya. Jaya hadn't liked it at first, but they had gotten used to each other.

Wan entered the only room the shack had. The furniture consisted of a small, low table with one teapot and a cup on it, an old carpet with holes in it, and an old sleeping mat that Yao usually sat on. Jaya was sitting on the carpet. He looked up when Wan entered, looking hopefully, but his eyes fell down again when he saw his friend's empty hands. Then he noticed all the muddy stains on Wan's clothes.

"Did you try to steal from the Chu's again?" he asked, frowning.

"Yeah," Wan answered, "And I got nothing to show for it aside from some dirty rolls and a few bruises." He took the only two rolls he had managed to hold on to out of his clothes. He handed one to Jaya and gave the other to Yao. The older man happily started to eat, but Jaya looked at Wan with a concerned look on his face.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" he asked.

"I'll be fine. Besides, I'm tired of eating scraps." Wan sighed and sat down on the floor. He took the old teapot from the table and poured himself a cup. The leftover tea was cold and hardly drinkable, but it was better than nothing.

"You can't keep stealing from the Chu's," Jaya said. "You'll end up dead someday. Or worse, banished into the Spirit Wilds!"

"Oh, don't get banished!" Yao exclaimed. "The Spirits will get you, they'll get inside ya, scramble up your mind! Turn you into...This!" he yelled dramatically. He turned around, crawled up in a ball and kept mumbling under his breath.

"Well, the Chu's have all the food and we have nothing, so what choice do I have?" Wan said, looking at Jaya. He just raised his shoulders.

"It's just no fair. If only we could get into the Chu's palace, we'd be eating like... Well, like Chu's!" Wan said. Jaya shook his head.

"What can I say? You just gotta accept things are the way they are. Some people have power, some don't. And we don't." he said, using a tone of voice that sounded lik he had explained this to his friend many times before.

"I know, I know..." Wan said. He finished his tea but when he wanted to pour a second cup, he saw the teapot was empty.

The next day, Wan went back up the hill into the city again. He had promised Jaya to not try to sneak into the Chu's palace again (at least not today), so now he wandered a bit aimlessly. He wondered if he could manage to find a job or something, but who would hire some skinny kid in dirty old clothes? And he wasn't sure if he had any talent or skill for anything. So he just walked, hoping for something to come along that could help him and his friends. He did "find" two apples, that's to say, he picked one up from the ground next to a fruit stand and stole another one when the owner wasn't looking, so at least he wasn't too hungry.

Some time in the afternoon, he noticed people standing in front of an announcement poster. He couldn't read, so he had no idea what the poster said, but the picture was clear enough: it depicted three strong men in heavy leather armor. One of them held a net with an animal in it, while the other two had fire shooting out of their hands, aimed at a bluish green creature that could only be a Spirit.

"So the Hunt will begin again tomorrow," Wan heard one of the onlookers say.

"Good for them," someone else said, "but you won't see me going into the Wilds."

"It's so dangerous!" a young woman said. "Oh, brave souls!"

Wan looked closely at the poster, specifically at the fire that the hunters were able to use. The Hunt happened every month, and the four hunters then eventured into the Spirit Wilds to catch animals for meat. They always looked for more volunteers, but anyone rarely went along with them, dispite the promise of the power of fire, given by the great Lion Turtle the city was built on.

An idea started to form in Wan's mind. If he could manage to come by this fire power somehow, there was so much he could do...

_AN: first chapter done. I guess it was kind of short, but it's just the start, I'm still getting into it. Hope you've enjoyed. Stay tuned, I'll try to update as soon as I can. If I've made any grammar mistakes, I'm sorry, but English isn't my native language. Let me know if I've made any, so I can correct them._


	2. The Hunt

**Chapter 2: The Hunt**

"Are you brave, are you fearless? Do you have what it takes? Come join the Hunt!"

Cheng the hunter called out these words once again. The weather was nice, so there were lots of people out, and while most of them greeted him with a respectfull nod, no one seemed to even remotely concider to give in to his request. Nothing unusual, really.

There had never been many volunteers, but lately, there hadn't been any whatsoever. Cheng and his companions had gone hunting with just the four of them for almost half a year now. Even the promise of fire wasn't enough to pursuade people to join them. They did fine on their own, but they could always use someone extra, even if it was just to carry their stuff.

Cheng looked around for a few moments, looking as brave and fearless as he could. The people seemed impressed, he was one of the few that dared go to the Spirit Wilds after all. He and his fellow hunters were amongst the most respected citizens. They lived in the best houses and were allowed the best food and resources. Their job was very dangerous indeed, but the perks that came with it were fantastic.

He called for volunteers once more, but he had already decided to call it quits and gather up to leave for the Wilds.

"Count me in!" a voice chimed.

Finally, Cheng thought, and he turned to face the person that had spoken. His enthousiasm fell deeper than ever when he saw the skinniest, dirtiest lower city peasant he'd ever layed eyes on. Aside from the broad smile on his face and his eager expression, the boy didn't look like anybody Cheng would want on his expedition. He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Do you think you have what it takes? We'll be out in the Wilds for a week." he asked, hoping to discourage the young man.

"I can handle myself," he said, mimicking Cheng's tough stance by crossing his arms over his chest, too. "We all get fire, right?" he asked right afterwards.

"Yes," Cheng answered, "but do you know how to use fire?"

The boy's face fell a bit at that, he didn't look so sure of himself anymore.

"Well, I..."

"Oh, just let him come, Cheng."

It was Li, one of the expedition members, a rather ordinary looking man but the best tracker Cheng knew. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"It's not like we have any other volunteers." he said. Cheng rolled his eyes, but his companion had a point.

"Fine. You can come along." he sighed. "What's your name?"

"I'm Wan," the teenager said, still smiling.

"Alright. Go pack your stuff. We'll be leaving soon."

Wan just raised his shoulders. "I'm good to go now, to be honest."

Cheng looked him up and down again, frowning. He hoped he wasn't going to regret this.

"Follow me, then. We will go to speak to the Lion Turtle first."

– – –

The hunters left the city on foot, packed with all the supplies neccesary for their mission: food, materials to set up traps, and tents. There was only one thing still missing: a means to defend themselves.

Cheng led the men down a small road up a hillside that ended in a ledge in front of the city. He took a large horn from his belt, put it to his lips and blew a loud, clear tone that echoed through the valley.

Wan had been walking along at the back of the group. He found himself lucky to have made it this far. Cheng had seemed very reluctant to let him join and none of the other hunters looked excited to have him in the group. Not that it mattered once his plan would unfold. Still, he was getting slightly nervous. He knew the city he lived in was built on the mighty shell of a Lion Turtle, the great animal that protected the people from the Spirits that lived in the wilds. He had never seen it, but every month, there was a deep, loud noise when the Hunt began once again. When the Lion Turtle woke up to give the power of fire to the hunters, the tremors of its movements could be felt everywhere in the city.

The echoes of the horn blow slowly died out. Silence fell. Then, it was as if the earth itself started moving. What had looked like a large rocky hill buried in the ground, broke loose. The Lion Turtle's head appeared over the hill. It towered over the hunters, blocking out the morning sun. Pieces of dirt and rock fell down from its sides. Huge eyes with the colour of mossy stones and ancient things fixed their gaze on the people on the hill. There was a deep, resonating sound they all felt throughout their bodies and Wan realized it was the mighty animal's breathing.

"Great Lion Turtle, protector of our city!" Cheng spoke loudly. "We are venturing into the Spirit Wilds to hunt for animals to feed our people! We ask you to give to us the power of fire, so we may defend ourselves!"

The Lion Turtle blinked slowly and then opened its mouth to speak. Its voice was booming and the hunters had to refrain themselves from putting their hands over their ears.

"The power is yours to keep, until your return."

Cheng turned around and looked at Wan. "You're first, kid."

Wan stepped foward, a bit hesitant. He had no idea how this was going to work. The Lion Turtle's eyes were now fixed on him and he had never felt so small. Then, the mighty animal slowly lifted one of its paws and surpisingly gently for a creature so large, put one tip of his claws on Wan's forehead and another on his chest. Nothing seemed to be happening at first, but then, he felt something... flow into him. It seemed both hot and cold and it waved through his body, from the tips of the Lion Turtle's claws, to his heart, to his head and down his spine, arms and legs. Then, it settled itself in. The Lion Turtle lifted its paw back up.

Wan took a deep breath and he could feel the air in his lungs generate energy through his limbs. He looked down to his hand, lifted it up and channeled the heat to his palm. Immediatly, a large flame burst out of it and he stumbled backwards by the force of it.

"Try to aim at the Spirits, not us, alright?" he heard Cheng say as the hunter stepped up to be given fire as well.

Wan took another deep breath to get familiar with the power had had been given. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He felt as if nothing could stop him.

Now it was time for the rest of his plan to unfold.

After the other hunters had been given fire, the group departed for the Spirit Wilds. The valley the Lion Turtle slept in, was surrounded by a large, dense forest. It was filled with fog and distant noises. The men were quiet as they walked into it, keeping a close eye out for any threat.

"Try to keep up," Cheng said. "Spirits love to attack slackers."

He had barely said those words when he noticed the newest member of his crew lag behind. The boy looked frightened to the core.

"Guys... I don't think I can do this..." he said with a tremble in his voice. Cheng rolled his eyes. He was not in any mood to babysit this kid through the woods.

"Quit your wining!" he snapped. "We haven't even seen a Spirit yet."

"We're barely into the Wilds, Wan." Li said. "If you can't even handle some strange noises..."

But the teenager shook his head and his eyes trailed off to the trees as he nervously rubbed his arms.

"I want to go home..."

The hunters sighed and Cheng walked over to the boy with an angry look on his face.

"I knew you'd be nothing but trouble!" he yelled, grabbing hold of Wan's clothing. "Go give your power back to the Lion Turtle and never show your face around me again!"

He pushed Wan off him and firmly walked away into the forest. The other hunters followed him. Li looked over his shoulder once just to see Wan wander back to the valley.

What none of them saw was the wide grin on the young man's face.

– – –

Wan ran the last part of the road back. He saw the Lion Turtle had gone back to sleep, its head buried back into the earth, but he was still scared he might get caught anyway. He lived on the animal's back, who knew what it all knew and heard? But if it was asleep most of the time, he had a pretty good chance of getting away with this. This being the sensation he still felt in his body when he climbed back to the shed. He could hardly wait to show his friends what he could do.

"Wan, you're back!" Jaya exclaimed happily.

"Could you snatch a snack for us this time?" Yao patted his tummy.

"No," Wan answered. "I got something better."

He extended his right hand and waved his other one over it, like a perfomer about to do a trick. A flame burst from his palm. Yao's jaw dropped and Jaya flinched, looking confused and scared.

"What did you do?" he yelled. "You can't steal from the Lion Turtle!"

Wan grinned. "Really? Because I just did."

Jaya shook his head. "You'll get into so much trouble for this." Wan saw his friend looked genuinly concerned and sat down next to him.

"Don't you see?" he explained. "There's so much I can do now. The most important thing being, I won't have to be afraid of the Chu's anymore."

Jaya looked Wan in the eyes and he saw his friend had more in mind than just conjuring flames from his hands.

"What are you planning, Wan?" he asked. "If you're going after the Chu's, forget it. You can't win on your own."

"But I'm not going to be alone, Jaya. If I show the others what I did, we can do something. We can break into the palace and take what we need. We won't ever have to be hungry again."

Jaya looked down. Wan's enthousiasm was inspiring, but there were so many ways it could go wrong.

"We need to go talk to the people." Wan said. "Are you coming with me?" He stood back up and held out a hand to help his friend up. Jaya bit his lip, but took Wan's hand anyway.

– – –

_Author's note: this took a bit longer than I had in mind, but here it is. Hope you've enjoyed and thanks for reading._


	3. The rebellion

**Chapter 3: The rebellion**

"Hey, did you hear about Wan?"

"Heard what? Who's that?"

"You know, that skinny kid that lives around here."

"Yeah, uh, there's like a dozen skinny kids living around here. Which one?"

"He lives with Yao the Tree guy."

"Oh, that kid. What about 'm?"

"Rumor has it he stole fire from the Lion Turtle."

"He stole fire?!"

"Sh! Keep your voice down, it's supposed to stay secret..."

By the end of the week, half the lower city had heard about Wan stealing the power of fire. Alot of people didn't believe it and most people didn't want anything to do with it, but the idea became almost mythical and Wan noticed the people looked at him where ever he went. He and Jaya had been out alot and tried to listen in what everyone thought. Wan's plan was to eventually rally a group of brave ones to come with him and break into the Chu's palace. With his new fire power, he was sure to be able to handle anyone trying to stop them.

It was well into the afternoon, the sun had already gone past its highest point in the sky. It was warm and there was no wind. The city life slowed down a bit under the heat, but there were still lots of people around. Wan and Jaya sat in the shade of a tree and watched everyone go about their bussiness. Just before, a tall, musceled man had come to talk to them. He had let them know he believed the rumors and wanted to help. Wan hadn't confirmed anything to the man about the fire, but had told him to come to the shed that evening, and to bring reliable friends.

"Why didn't you tell that guy about the fire?" Jaya asked.

"We don't know who we can trust." Wan answered. "That's why I'm trying to make this all look like just rumors. We need a group of people we can rely on that they won't sell us our or something."

"Right," Jaya said. "We need people that hate the Chu's just as much as we do."

"Exactly. And that's not too hard around here, seeing as everyone is hungry all the time since the Chu's keep all the food to themselves."

"You know, Wan, you could've just stayed with the Hunt and have a share in all their spoils when you returned." Jaya said. Wan looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"That was never the point." he answered. "Besides, if I did, you and Yao and everyone else would still be down here, hungry and poor. That's just not right."

Jaya nodded, smiling. "You're a great friend, Wan. I mean that. Who knows, we might actually get away with this."

Wan smiled back.

"Just wait and see. It'll turn out alright." he said.

– – –

The sun had set about an hour ago. Jaya and Yao sat at the table, playing a game of pai sho. Wan paced up the down the small room and looked out the door every now and then.

"Can't you sit down? You're making me nervous." Jaya said. "I'm sure I lost the past two games because I can't concentrate with you running around like a chicken on a hot plate."

"Yeah, sure..." Wan mumbeled. He looked out the door once again, sighed and went to sit down anyway.

"I just wish someone would turn up already." he said. "I'm tired of waiting."

"Maybe no one will show." Jaya said as he moved a tile on the game board. "I already thought it seemd a bit too good to be true when that man talked to us this afternoon."

Wan rolled his eyes. "When are you going to decide if you're going to be positive about this or not?"

"How much of a chance did you think we had? I don't know, Wan, maybe you should just go give your fire back to the Lion Turtle after all."

Wan frimly shook his head. "You've been trying to convince me to do that the whole week, Jaya. I'm not changing my mind."

Jaya sighed, but didn't answer. Wan took the teapot from the table and looked if there was anything in it. He almost dropped it when there was a knock on the wall of the shed.

The man they had met in the afternoon came in, along with at least eight other people. There was barely room enough in the shed, so they had to move the table away (Yao protested this, claiming he was about to win again while Jaya insisted he was going to make the winning move) and even then most of the men had to stand. Wan didn't say much but he had a big smile on his face the whole time. The man they'd met before introduced himself as Huo and the people he brought were friends and collegues. They all worked on the farms owned by the Chu's. It was hard labour and they barely got anything for their work.

"We're sick of working from dusk till dawn and barely be able to feed our families." Huo said. "If the rumors are true, you would be a great help to us to claim what we deserve."

"If it really is true." another man said and gave Wan a sceptical look. Wan nodded and knew the time had come to reveal his secret. He held out his hand and produced a flame out of his palm. The men looked at him in awe.

"As you can see, I do have the power of fire." Wan said. "We can make this work."

"We need a plan," Huo said. "This is very risky and we don't want to end up in prison or banished. We need to make sure everyone gets back home safely."

"We could conceal our faces with a mask," the sceptical man said. "If they don't know who we are, they can't arrest us."

"Good idea," Wan said. "I can fight any guards off with the fire, if I need to."

The men nodded and they all looked enthousiastic. They spent the rest of the evening planning and getting to know each other. They all seemed thrustworthy and more than ready to rebel against the Chu's. But Wan noticed Jaya was very quiet the whole time.

After Huo and his friends had left, Wan went to sit down next to his friend.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Jaya just raised his shoulders and didn't say anything. Wan gave him a concerned look.

"You still think this is all a bad idea, don't you?" he said.

"You know what I really think," Jaya said. "You should go an give the fire back."

"We can't back out now." Wan answered. "We've made plans, those men are relying on us."

"They're relying on you," Jaya retorted. "I just sat here and listened."

"Jaya..."

"Forget it. I shouldn't be jealous. I'd probably just get scared. You're the brave one, not me." He sighed and looked away. Wan put a hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe those men don't think you're important, but I do. You're my best friend. We're in this together."

Jaya looked up again and managed to smile a bit. Wan smiled back at him.

"It'll be fine, you'll see."

"I hope so. Don't get yourself caught, okay?"

Wan laughed. "I'll just have to blast them away if they try!"

Jaya laughed, too, but Wan's enthousiasm didn't take away his concerns.

– – –

They waited for weeks. The rumors hadn't gone away, but no one seemed to take them very seriously anymore. Wan went to the farm Huo worked at as often as he could to talk and make sure everyone was still in. As the day they'd chosen to attack drew near, he became more and more nervous. He wished he would have the chance to practice shooting fire out of his hands a bit more, but he couldn't do it anywhere in the city and he didn't want to risk anyone catching him sneaking out into the Wilds on his own. And he didn't want to get lost there all alone.

The sun set on the day they had planned their rebellion. Wan sat outside the shed, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He tried to concentrate on his breathing, which seemed to help calm him down. The power of fire was ever present and he could feel its energy whenever he breathed in. The more he did it, the more natural it seemed. Breathing appeared to be the key to have some control over his ability. It was his only means of practice, so he that's what he did.

"Wan?"

He opened his eyes and looked up. It was Jaya and he looked about a nervous as Wan felt.

"It's time. We should go to the bridge."

They met with Huo and the others just outside the inner city walls. Wan had felt nervous before, but it seemed he had calmed down now that the rebellion was about to begin. Everyone looked at him expectantly, and he knew they would follow him.

"Ready?" he asked. The men nodded and they took the masks out of the bags they carried. They put them on and Wan led them into the city. They got to the Chu's palace without incident. Just as they got there, they saw Elder Chu's sons standing at the gate and the trio seemed suprised to see them.

"What's going on?" the oldest yelled. Wan stepped forward.

"Give us all the food you're hording and we won't give you any trouble." he stated firmly. The three brothers looked at each other and then burst out in laughter.

"You're gonna give us trouble? We'll just see about that!"

Wan took another step forward, took a deep breath and thrust his right hand out. As he breathed out again, a large flame burst out of his hand. The Chu brothers yelled and barely got away from the fire. Wan made another fireball and forced the gate to the palace open.

"Come on!" he shouted and motioned for the others to follow him. They ran for the gates and entered the palace's courtyard. Wan led them on. He had been here before and knew where he could find the food. He ran to a storage house at the left end of the courtyard and blew the door open with another fireblast.

"Grab as much food as you can!"

Jaya, in a monkey mask, grabbed his arm and pointed. "Looks like the Chu's found backup!"

The three borthers came back running, followed by a number of guards carrying heavy weapons. It didn't look too good for the rebels, but at least they weren't empty handed.

"Get everyone out of here," Wan told Jaya. "I'll hold them off." Jaya nodded and sped off to warn the others. Wan took a deep breath again and shot a fireball at the oncoming guards. They scattered away from the flames but they were moving in to surround him. Wan saw the last of the rebels flee through the gate and looked to escape himself, but there were more guards now. He quickly shot some fireblasts around, hoping to scare them off. A guard with a spear attacked him, but he got hold of the weapon and swung the guard away from him in a rain of flames. Itstarted to look like he might get away after all.

But then the youngest Chu brother jumped on his back, trying to pry the mask off his head. Wan turned around but the Chu had a firm hold and didn't let go. Wan produced a wall of fire around him, desperatly trying to shake off the brother and keeping away any guards before they saw his face. But he was starting to doubt if it was any use. He was surrounded and his chances of escaping were getting very slim. The flaming wall grew brighter as Wan grew more angry. He finally threw the Chu brother off him and the young man rolled away from him, but he had pulled of Wan's mask. He crawled back on his knees, raising his hands over his head at his attacker.

"Please, have mercy..." he pleaded. Wan had a flame ready to strike, but he saw the Chu brother was unarmed. He hesitated. He didn't want to burn a defenseless man. The Chu looked up at last and a look of total surprise spread across his face.

"Wan?"

Wan gritted his teeth. He was exposed. But if all of the guards had been busy with him and if the others had gotten away safely... He lowered his arm and let the flames die out. He was immediatly captured by the guards. The younger Chu brother got up, still looking surprised, but he quickly recovered and looked as smug as ever.

"Even when you do have some power, you're afraid to use it!" he exclaimed. He was joined by his brothers. Wan struggled a bit against the guards holding him, but he knew it was no use. If they didn't kill him right away, they'd surely banish him to the Spirit Wilds. He could only hope Jaya and the rest of the men had gotten away safely.

"Lock him away." the oldest Chu brother said. "Our father will decide over his faith in the morning."

They put Wan in a dark, wet prison cell underground. There were no windows aside from a small square hole in the door. There wasn't any furniture and barely any room to stand up straight. Wan curled up in a corner and tried to ignore the scittering of invisible, nameless insects around him. He couldn't even bring himself to make a small flame so he would at least have some light and warmth. He stubbornly wiped away the tears from his eyes. At least his friends got away. But that thought was just a small ray of hope in the darkness.

– – –

_AN: I'd like to thank everyone who's reviewed, favourited and followed this story so far. It's great to see people being supportive. Stay tuned for new content, I'll probably get another chapter or two out this week._


	4. Punishment

**Chapter 4: Punishment**

Jaya suddenly woke up, gasping. He blinked a few times and noticed he was still sitting outside the doorway of the shed. Judging by the light the sun was about to rise. He looked inside the shed but the only person there was Yao, snoring away on his sleeping mat. Wan still hadn't come back. Jaya sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. He shifted a bit to sit more comfortably and continued to wait for this friend.

He almost fell asleep again when he heard the sounds he had been hoping to hear all night: footsteps. But the person that came to the shed was Huo.

"There's been an announcement from the Chu's palace," he said. "It tells about the attack last night, and that one of the rebels was captured. Elder Chu will decide his punishment later today."

"Wan..." Jaya muttered.

"I'm sorry, kid." With that, Huo left.

– – –

Wan had somehow managed to fall asleep in his damp, dark prison cell. He was woken up brutally by two guards that practically dragged him out of the cell. They forced him to his feet and splashed some water in his face. Then, they took him with them, going up and up in the palace, passing numerous stairs and hallways. The higher they got, the more elaborate the walls and decorations became. At last, they stepped into a hallway that was wider and taller than all the others. At the end of it, there was a huge door made of wood with carved figures, decorated with precious metal and gems. Two more guards stood in front of it. They nodded as the other two guards and their prisoner approached. The man on the left knocked on the door three times and it swung open.

Behind the doors was a room so large and imposing, Wan forgot for a moment the dreadfull situation he was in. There were two rows of pillars that extended to a cieling so high up, the light of the numerous lamps and candles placed throughout the hall could not reach it. The pillars themselves were decorated with many carvings in the shape of animals and plants that seemed too fantastic to be real. The floor was covered in so many finely woven carpets you'd easily miss it was made of wood. The walls were decorated with paintings of dreamy landscapes. But what attracted Wan's attention the most, was the wide, low wooden table in the middle of the hall.

It was almost breaking under the weight of more food than he'd ever seen gathered in one place in his life, more kinds of food he'd ever seen or heard of, he dared even think more food than he'd ever eaten himself. Somehow that last thought didn't seem so farfetched. The rich colours and delicious smell of it was a painfull reminder of he fact he hadn't eaten anything for almost two days now, and the fact he was probably only here so Elder Chu and his family could have fun deciding if they'd rather kick him out of the city or chop his head off. There was no telling what the Elder would do, and Wan could only hope he'd call for banishment. At least he'd be alive a bit longer in that case. Either way, it didn't look good for him.

None of the memebers of the Chu family had given the slightest hint of acknowledgement to the people that had just entered the room. Elder Chu himself sat at the head of the table, slowly stirring a spoon in a bowl of soup while he was reading a scroll. He was a heavy man, with a face that frowned much more often than it laughed. His three sons sat to the right, they were all eating so noisily it was getting disturbing. There was only one person sitting at the left of the table, a woman so extraordinarily heavy Wan was sure she had to be four times his weight, dispite the fact she looked to be only half as tall as he was. She put little pieces of food in her mouth at a fast rate, making tiny noises of enjoyment every time she chewed.

Wan wasn't sure if his stomach was now hurting from hunger of from nausea.

Elder Chu sighed and pushed the scroll aside. He finally looked up at the visitors, seemingly bored but his expression turned darker when his eyes gazed over Wan.

"Ah," he said. "So this is the thief."

"Don't forget he attacked us in our own home," the oldest of the Chu brothers said.

"He's been a menace for far too long," the middle brother said.

"Off with his head!" the youngest exclaimed while making hacking motions with his hand, all the while stuffing more food in his mouth with his other hand. Not one of the brothers even looked at Wan.

"Very well." Elder Chu said as he went back to eat his soup.

Before, Wan had felt a bit sick to his stomach, but now he felt like he didn't have one at all. Just like that, these people had decided his life was over. Oddly enough, he was more worried about what would become of Jaya and Yao after he'd been killed. They weren't terribly good at looking after themselves, to be honest.

"Oh, please don't, honeybear," the fat lady suddenly piped up dramatically. "You know how much I hate these executions. Can't stand the sight of blood..."

Elder Chu rolled his eyes but he patted his wife's hand calmingly. "It's fine, dear, we'll banish him instead, then. Alright?"

"Very good." the woman said and went back to feeding herself tiny pieces of food. Wan looked at her, completely astonished. She had probably saved his life (at least until he would be devoured by vicious Spirits in the Wilds after his banishment) but he was still getting more and more disgusted by her. To make things worse, she started making noises again while eating.

"Is there anything you want to say?" Elder Chu asked and Wan was surprised the man adressed him directly. A thousand things he could say (most involved a ton of profanities) went through his mind, but he ended up just shrugging.

"Nothing?" the Elder said. "Not even some usefull information about the other rebels? I might reconcider your punishment."

Wan's eyes widened.

"You want me to betray my friends on the off chance you'll let me stay in the city?" he said. He glared at the older man. "You'd let me stay in prison, no doubt. Thanks, but no thanks."

Elder Chu's scowl was deeper than ever. "So, you're not as foolish as you seem." he said. "Keep in mind that I can still call for your execution if I choose to. Now, give me some names before I change my mind."

Wan shook his head and didn't say another word. The Elder was not impressed by his stubbornness.

"Get him out of my sight," he ordered. "It doesn't matter if he talks or not. He will be banished at sunset."

The guards roughly pulled Wan away and took him back to his cell. He curled up in one of the corners of the small room again, but he felt oddly calm. He breathed in and created a tiny flame in the palm of his hand. It seemed that the fire inside him was the only thing he had left in the world, and chances were they were going to take that away from him too. So he kept the flame going for as long as he could, savoring the feeling of light and warmth. He would be sent away into the Spirit Wilds that evening and it was pretty safe to say he wouldn't last very long. But as he stared into the flame in his hand, an idea dawned in his mind , and it gave him hope again.

– – –

The dying light of the setting sun set the hilltops around the valley ablaze in bright red and orange hues. Down in the woods, shadows and fog crept up from the depths, along with many nameless things that hid in the earth during the day. As the light faded, the silence grew.

Wan was taken through the city by an escort of about ten guards, led by Elder Chu and his sons. Many people were out on the street to see the thief of the Lion Turtle's fire. Wan didn't know everyone talked about it and the opinions about his actions ranged from disdain to admiration. He felt much more uncomfortable under the staring of so many people than he had ever felt in his imprisonment. He often heard someone say his name, and the words 'fire' and 'rebel'. He tried to ignore it all as best as he could. It was not like he would see any of these people ever again. As they exited the city, he did feel a bit relieved he hadn't seen anyone he knew in the crowd. He would hate to see the dissapointment and sadness on the faces of his friends.

They walked to the same hill hunter Cheng and his company went to everytime they traveled into the Wilds. Elder Chu summoned the Lion Turtle with a similar looking horn Cheng had used. The ground trembled once again and the great animal soon set its gaze upon the people on the hilltop. Elder Chu bowed to it, turned around and motioned for the guards to bring their prisoner forward.

"Wan," he spoke, "You stole the power of fire from the Lion Turtle, brought it into the city and used it to disturb the peace. You are hereby banished to the Spirit Wilds."

"And give back the fire!" the youngest of the Chu brothers exclaimed. The guards holding Wan pushed him off to face the Lion Turtle. He had felt small the first time looking into the eyes of a creature older than he could comprehend, but now, he felt infinitly smaller. The animal didn't even look like he cared at all about the tiny human in front of him. If anything, he did seem slightly dissapointed. Wan swallowed. This ancient being was his last remaining hope of having the slimmest chance to survive in the Spirit Wilds on his own. The Lion Turtle was the only one capable of giving and taking the power of fire away. Not a person could tell it what to do. But Wan could try to ask it for a favor.

"Great Lion Turtle," he said. "I'm sorry I stole the fire from you and I accept my punsihment. But please, I need to keep it to be able to defend myself in the Wilds."

It was the best he could do. Every second that passed before the Lion Turtle answered seemed like an eternity. When it finally spoke, its voice sent tremors through the earth and some of the guards covered their ears with their hands.

"Never again may you return to this city." it said. "But I will allow you to keep the power of the element."

Wan let out a huge sigh of relief. He heard someone behind him gasp. It didn't matter. He had a chance now. He could make it. He took a deep and the fire inside him grew.

His little moment of glory was short lived as the guards grabbed him again and pushed him away down the hill to the edge of the woods. They shoved him off and barely looked at him, they seemed happy to be finally rid of him. Elder Chu was already heading back to the city and did not look back. But his sons lingered some time longer.

"Lucky shot, but I don't believe it'll help you against hordes of angry Spirits." the oldest said.

"I bet you won't last till morning." the middle one said.

"I bet you won't last for an hour." the youngest said. Wan looked at them angrily.

"Go, shoo! Get out!" the youngest stepped up and gave him a final shove. Then, the trio turned around and went back to their home. Wan sighed heavily, and made his way into the Spirit Wilds.

– – –

_AN: finally finished this chapter. I meant to upload this yesterday, but I didn't have much time and I was really tired. I will be having more time in the future to write, so I can update a bit faster. I am also rewriting some parts of previous chapters since I'm not completely satisfied with them yet. So if you reread the story later, don't be surprised some things have been added or changed._

_Thank you for reading and see you in the next! Feel free to review._


	5. Into the Wilds

**Chapter 5: Into the Wilds**

The last lingering light of the sun faded away at last. The shadows in the woods grew and the silence deepened. Sometimes, there was movement down in the bushes or high up in the trees but whatever creatures made them did not show themselves. No wind rustled the leaves. Suddenly, there was a sweepig noise, followed by a nasty growl and the sound of tiny bones breaking. Three glowing eyes lit up for a short moment before fading away in the mists. The silence returned, heavy and brooding, like the end of a hot summer's day waited for the thunderstorm to finally break loose. But it was cold and dark, and there was no shelter.

Wan had created a flame in his hand and held it up as he walked deeper into the woods. His eyes were wide open and he often stopped and turned around. He felt as if has he was being followed or at the very least watched closely by whatever beings lived here. He had never seen a Spirit in his life and the rumours he had heard only told of how they attacked and messed up any human foolish enough to cross their path. He hoped the stories were exaggerated, but the Wilds did seem as frightening as he'd heard.

"It's because it's dark," he muttered to himself." It'll all look better in the morning..."

He felt something brush by his elbow. He yelped and jumped up while sending a big fireblast behind him. In the flickering light of the dying flames, he saw nothing but his own footprints in the dirt. The feeling of being watched worsened. He saw a movement in the corner of his eye. He turned around again, holding the flame in his hand up in front of him, but there was nothing there.

He took a few deep breaths to try to calm down and moved on. There was no point in standing still and when he walked, he at least had the feeling he was heading somewhere, even if he knew he didn't have a place to go to anymore. But he had the power of fire and that could not be taken from him. The determination to survive no matter what crossed his path grew inside him.

But the night would still last for hours and he was cold an hungrier than ever.

He had no idea for how long he walked. He tried to follow a sort of path between the trees, but it didn't seem to lead anywhere and dissapeared often. He still felt as if numerous eyes followed his every move, but he hadn't seen or heard of felt anything since that first time. He guessed the fire scared off any creature or Spirit, at least for now. He was getting tired, but he had no idea where and if he could find a decent spot to get some rest. He wondered if it would be a good idea to climb up a tree and sit a while.

He suddenly stepped on something that moved and squeeked loudly.

"Hey! Watch where you're stepping, human!"

Wan looked down to see a small, blue frog wiggle under his foot. He sighed in relief. Frogs weren't scary. He remembered getting his hands on roasted frog's legs once, pretty much the tastiest thing he'd ever eaten. He wondered if he would try to catch the animal first or just fry it right away. Then, it hit him. Frogs didn't talk.

The creature crawled from under his foot and right before his eyes, it started to grow, bigger and bigger, until it's head almost dissapeared in the trees. Terrified, Wan stumbled backwards and fell over, forgetting to keep his fire going. The frog lifted up one of its gigantic feet, meaning to crush the human that had distured his peace. Wan got up just in time and he ran away as fast as he could. He didn't look back to see if the frog Spirit followed him.

He ran until his lungs hurt. He finally came to a halt in an open spot between the trees and tried to catch his breath. He went to lie on the ground, which seemed to be covered in short, soft and very comfy looking grass, until he calmed down a bit. His first encounter with a Spirit had been nothing like he had expected, but that didn't make it any less frightening.

Wan barely layed down when he felt cold, slimy things come up from the grass and grab him. They pulled him in the now sludgy ground. Everything went dark. He couldn't see or breathe, but he could a hear a distant noise, as if the thing that had caught him laughed at his struggle. The lack of oxygen slowed him down and fear clouded his mind. He was alone and there was no help, no escape. The laughing noise rang in his ears. It angered him when he realized that would probably be the last thing he would ever hear. His anger gave him strenght. The fire inside him grew bright and he sent large flames from both his hands in a final attempt to break free. The creature in the ground no longer laughed, but screamed in pain and released its grip on Wan. He crawled back up from the ground, gasping for air, and ran off into the woods again.

Next thing he knew, he was caught by a gigantic flesh eating plant, and it almost swallowed him whole. Sharp teeth scraped the skin of his legs, the only parts of his body still free from the new creature's grasp. Wan sent fire from his hands again, burned the inside of the plant, forcing the thing to let him go. He fell on the ground, got to his feet and ran for his life again.

He spent the rest of the night lurking around from behind trees, making sure he stepped on solid ground every time he moved. He held a flame in his hand the whole time, and sent fireblasts at anything he heard or saw. No creature or Spirit attacked him again, but his previous encounters had been so traumatizing he didn't take any chances and rather randomly burned things down than run risk of being killed and eaten.

By the time the sun came up, he was deadly tired and started to feel a bit light in the head. His stomach growled and his throat was soar. He still held a flame in his hand, but it was getting smaller by the minute, flickering like a candle just before it extinguished. He did notice the forest looked alot less scary in daylight. If he would've had the energy to pay closer attention, he would've noticed the woods were actually quite beautifull, filled with sunlight filtering through the leaves of the ancient trees, shrouding the enviroment in green and golden hues.

He came across a small river, and after checking if it wasn't occupied by anything dangerous by throwing a rock in it from a distance, he drank from it until his stomach hurt. He realized he would have to find something to eat soon, or he wouldn't last very long anymore. The last time he had eaten was on the day of the rebellion, three days ago. It felt longer than that, though, and during his imprisonment he hadn't been given any food and barely anything to drink.

Wan sat by the river for a while, trying to figure out what he would do. He had his arms around his knees and looked left and right. Everything was quiet, but it was peacefull and calm as oppose to the watchfull silence from last nigt. He layed down his head on his arms and sighed heavily. He closed his eyes for a short moment, overpowered by his exaustion. But the hunger he felt didn't allow him any rest, and he got up again. He decided to follow the river downstream to see where it went.

Some time later, he saw a tree with some very odd looking fruits growing on it. They were rougly the size of his head, bright red and they seemed absolutely delicious. He could just reach the lowest one and was happily surprised when it came off easily. But his happiness didn't last long. The fruit started moving as soon as he got hold of it, and suddenly it fell apart in his hands. The fruit wasn't fruit at all, it was a number of giant beetles that horded together to sleep. The beetles buzzed angrily at their disturbance. The flew around Wan's head and attempted to sting him. He ran away again, screaming, trying to shake the beetles off.

His feet suddenly didn't find solid ground anymore as he ran. He had jumped through some bushes, but behind them, the woods ended and the ground went downhill. Wan didn't see it in time, lost his balance and stumbled down. He hit several thorny bushes and some hard rocks on his way down, and he was more bruised than ever when he stopped falling. His head hurt, his clothes were torn and he was bleeding a bit, but as he got up, a wonderfull sight greeted him.

He stood at the bottom of a small valley. In the middle of it was a small lake, filled by several rivers and waterfalls. In the lake, there was an island with a pond in it. Around the pond, there were tall, broad trees with many tasty looking, pear shaped fruits hanging from their branches. A single bridge led over the lake to the oasis island. The sun broke through a few clouds and the whole scene was the most inviting thing Wan had come across so far. He sighed at the thought of food, water, and some rest at last. He approached the bridge, not bothered to be on the lookout for any danger. The oasis looked so peacefull it didn't cross his mind other beings might occupy it.

There was a flash and a creature appeared on the bridge as Wan tried to cross it. It pushed him back hard, and he fell over. He gaped at the creature in surprise. It was taller than he was, completely covered in brown and white fur, but it stood on two legs like a human. Its head reminded a bit of a cat or a lemur. It had yellow eyes and big ears, and big hands with long fingers and sharp nails. It crossed its arms over its chest and huffed.

"No humans allowed in my oasis!" it said.

Concidering every other creature had tried to kill him so far, this Spirit was the friendliest Wan had encountered. If he guarded a place of peace and quiet, he couldn't be so bad at all.

"Please, help me," he pleaded. "I'm starving and I haven't slept all night."

"No!" the Spirit said firmly. "Go away."

Wan got to his feet. He wasn't going to give up so easily.

"Let me pass!" he exclaimed and he threw flames from his hands at the Spirit's feet, attempting to scare it off, but he didn't seem impressed at all.

"Oh, you dare use your fire against me?" he said and he suddenly dissapeared in the same fashion he had appeared on the bridge moments before. Wan didn't have any time to react as the Spirit reappaered behind him, grabbed him by his clothes and threw him into the bushes, away from the oasis.

"Now be gone with you!" He didn't give Wan a second glance and paced back to the bridge. Wan crawled out from the bush, brushing leaves out of his hair. It looked like he'd have to find some other place to eat and rest.

He turned away from the lake, but he quickly stumbled back into the bushes again. Out of the woods, many creatures in all kinds of shapes and sizes came to the oasis. They were all Spirits. The Spirit at the bridge welcomed them and greeted many of them like they were close friends. The other Spirits seemed happy to be there, too. Because there were so many and they all looked so different, Wan had an idea of how he might get into the oasis and get to the fruit trees after all.

The Spirit that guarded the oasis was called Aye-Aye and he had been watching over the place for a long time. In the morning, many Spirits came to have a bath and some rest, before going about their bussiness of the day. Aye-Aye was proud to be the guardian of a place where Spirits could come together and have some peace for a while, especially whenever those bothersome human hunters were out in the woods again. Speaking of which, he thought, I wonder what that skinny, scruffy looking human did all the way out here. Up to nothing but trouble, I bet. Strange, he was all alone. Humans usually travel in groups. Maybe he really is lost and hungry. But, now, that's not my problem at all. Hm!

His train of thought was interrupted when he saw a Spirit approaching he'd never seen before. It was completely covered in leaves and walked a bit odd. Aya-Aye blinked a few times. He had lived in these woods for a long time and he was sure he knew everyone that resided there. Then again, the world was full of Spirits he'd never met, so it wasn't so strange at all some would travel far and wide and end up here. But he still was a bit on his guard. You never knew with strangers.

"And who might you be?" he inquired.

"I am Bushy, the Bush Spirit!" the creature announced. "I wish to enter your oasis."

"Very well," Aye-Aye said. "You may pass."

But as the Spirit passed by, he noticed an odd scent coming from under its leaves. He sniffed and his eyes widened. "Wait a minute!" he yelled, grabbed the stranger and firmly shook him about. Leaves fell everywhere and revealed the Bush Spirit wasn't a Spirit at all. It was that skinny human again, and he had cleverly disguised himself to sneak into the oasis! Aye-Aye pushed him off the bridge into the water of the lake.

"I knew it!" he yelled. "You'll have to do better than that, human! I can smell your kind from miles away!"

The human sat up in the shallow lake and rubbed the water from his eyes.

"Come on, let me in!" he pleaded again. "Just for a little while?"

"No! Go back to your Lion Turtle." Aye-Aye said.

"Believe me, I'd love to go back," the human explained. "But I can't. I got kicked out."

All the commotion had attracted the attention of the other Spirits. Two realtively young and friendly ones came to look why Aye-Aye yelled at a human.

"That's too bad," a big, round Spirit with a white face said.

"Don't pity him!" Aye-Aye snapped. "He's just like any other human, ugly, destructive and lacking any respect for nature."

"Who're you calling ugly, ugly?" the human scolded, now standing up again, his fists in his sides. Aye-Aye didn't know what to respond to that.

"If you can't go back to your city, why don't you go live in another one?" another Spirit with leaves growing out of its head said to the human. A look of total surprise came on his face when he heard those words.

"There are other Lion Turtle cities?" he exclaimed. Aye-Aye rolled his eyes.

"Of course there are!" he yelled. "Dozens of them! Boy, you humans are stupid, too."

"But that's great news!" the human didn't seem distracted by Aye-Aye's insults. "Which way to the nearest Lion Turtle city?"

"Hm, let's see..." Aye-Aye tilted his head and acted like he was thinking. "It's right on the other side of none-of-your-bussiness valley!" He laughed at his own clever joke, poking other Spirits to see if they had a good time too, but none of them seemed to think he was very comical.

"Real funny," the human said angrily. "Fine, I don't need your help. I'll go find it myself." He turned around firmly and immediatly tripped and fell into the water.

"Good luck!" the Spirit with the leaves waved.

– – –

Wan wandered away from the lake and back into the woods again. He felt odd. Still hungry and deadly tired, but really odd. He had never given any thought that there might be other humans outside of the city he grew up in. But it seemed to make sense if you thought about it, why would anyone just assume their city was the only one in the world? The only reason he hadn't realized was because he just never thought about it. He had enough to worry about, after all. But there were a number of new problems: he had no idea where to find another city, which direction he had to go in and how far it was. And it didn't look like the Spirits would be of any help, even if it turned out some of them were actually quite friendly, like the ones that had talked to him at the oasis.

He realized the only thing he could do was to keep walking and hope for the best. His biggest concern still was finding food.

He heard a noise coming from behind some trees. When he went to check out what it was, he saw it was the struggle of a catdeer caught in a large net hanging from a tree. So the Hunt is out, he thought, but there's no sign of the hunters. This was a great opporunity. If he worked fast enough, he could kill and take the animal away and finally have something to eat, probably for days. The catdeer was averagely taller than a human, and you had to look out for its teeth and claws, and the short, pointy horns sprouting from its head.

Wan approached carefully, while conjuring flames in both his hands. With the fire, he could kill the animal in no time. But as he drew closer, he started to feel odlly guilty. The flames reflected in the catdeer's eyes. They looked sad somehow, as if the animal realized the end was near. Wan took a deep breath, but he didn't do anything. He couldn't bring himself to kill the catdeer. He felt sorry for it, trapped and far away from home, with little to no hope of a happy ending. Just like him.

Wan sighed and extinguished the flames. He had decided to free the animal instead. Maybe it would be gratefull enough to help him find ways to survive. The catdeer growled at him when he came up to the net. He raised his hands to show he didn't mean any harm and talked to it in a calm voice, or so he tried. He climbed up the tree and onto the branch on wich the rope of the net was tied. But just as he got there, he heard voices.

"Finally, we caught something!" It was Cheng the hunter and his companions coming out of the woods. They looked up in surprise when they saw Wan on the treebranch.

"Wan? How did you... Nevermind," Cheng said. "Leave at once. We're taking this animal with us."

"Well, I'm saving this animal." Wan said, and he jumped down from the tree, sending bursts of flames from his hands at the hunters. He vaguely realized that he probably didn't stand much of a chance against three armoured, well fed men with the same fire power he had, but he had decided to keep the catdeer out of the hunter's hands and that's what he would do.

The hunters jumped away from the flames and Wan got up fast and ran away, hoping they would follow him. They did, yelling at him angrily. As he ran, he started to recognize the part of the woods he was in. He might be able to win after all if he handled it cleverly. He ran through some bushes and saw what he'd been looking for: short, soft looking grass in an open spot between the trees. He jumped over it, but the hunters following him didn't know what hid in the grass. Wan heard screaming and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw one fo the hunters had been swallowed by the creature in the ground. One down, he thought, and he didn't even feel sorry he had led a man to his death. He had never liked the hunters anyway.

A roaring noise passed by his head and he felt the heat of fire and the pain of burning. He still had to take out the three other hunters. He took a sharp turn to the left and zigzagged from tree to tree, hoping they would provide a little back cover from the fireballs the men chasing him threw at him. Then, he saw the trees where the beetles slept, and he took two hives off as he ran by them. He threw them behind him and the insects scattered about, flying up to attack the approaching hunters. One of them seemed to attract all their attention and they chased him back into the woods, stinging him everywhere they could.

Cheng and the last remaining hunter, Li, were now gaining on Wan. He became tired and he would have to figure something out quickly if he wanted to stay out of their hands. Cheng roared and sent a huge flame at Wan, so huge it threw him up high and blew him against a big tree branch. The blow was so hard it knocked the air out of his lungs and he almost lost conciousness. He fell back onto the ground and didn't get up.

"Looks like you're all out of tricks," Cheng said as he approached. Wan couldn't think clearly and his eyesight was foggy. The chase had drained him of the last bits of energy he had left. He was bruised, scratched and now burned too. He chest ached and he couldn't breathe properly. He closed his eyes and hoped it would all be over soon.

He opened them again when he heard Cheng gasp and he saw Li getting some kind of a seizure. Suddenly, the man started to grow fur in places. One of his eyes turned yellow and his ears grew twice their size. His hands turned into claws and whiskers sprouted from his face. Cheng stumbled backwards in fear, turned around and ran away screaming.

As sudden as the changes had started, they stopped again. The Spirit of the oasis emerged from Li's body, leaving the hunter halfway the transformation. Li regained his senses and looked thoroughly confused. He looked down at his deformed hands, a look of utter disgust spread across his face. He sprinted away, yelling at the top of his lungs.

"I don't know what he's screaming about," Aye-Aye said. "He's much better looking now."

He bent over and picked Wan up from the ground. The young man groaned in pain.

"Come now, it'll all be over soon." Aye-Aye told him. "Hm! No wonder they could blow you sky high, you barely weigh anything!"

He carried Wan back to the oasis and layed him in the water of the pond. Wan immediatly felt the pain leave his body. His head cleared up and he could see properly again. His bruises and burns seemd to have dissapeared completely.

"I feel great," he said. "What's in this water?"

"It has special healing properties." Aye-Aye responded. The Spirit with the white face handed Wan one of the pear shaped fruits and he happily ate it.

"Thanks for saving my neck," he said in between bites. "But why did you do it?"

"Your risked your life to save that catdeer," Aye-Aye said. "I've never seen such an act of compassion from a human before. I thought you didn't deserve to end by the hands of those hunters."

Wan nodded and took a second fruit from the white faced Spirit.

"What did you do to that hunter when you rescued me?" he asked.

"Spirits are able to take over a human body for a short time. If I had stayed in there any longer, I would've killed him. Which I did concider."

Wan wasn't sure yet if he liked the lemur Spirit or not. He seemed to oddly balance compassion and viciousness. He guessed he would decide to like him anyway, and started to eat a third fruit. Meanwhile, he saw the catdeer he'd saved approach. It sniffed his hair and he patted its head, and there was a sort of immediate understanding between the human and the animal. He got up to his feet and went to pick a fourth fruit from the trees. The healing from the water and being able to finally eat something made him feel better than ever.

"So are you off to find another Lion Turtle city?" the Spirit with the leaves on her head asked. Wan shook his head.

"No. I've had enough of humans for a while. I've decided to stay here and learn the ways of the Spirits." he said.

"What a great idea!" the Spirit said and several other nodded in agreement, but Aye-Aye wasn't so enthousiastic.

"Now, hold on," he said. "A human living with Spirits? It's never been done." But Wan smiled at him.

"First time for everything, right?" he said. "And you guys are the friendliest creatures I've met in my life. You know what most humans are like. Who's to say they'll be nice to me in another city?"

"Fair enough." Aye-Aye said. "I guess we could make this work. I never had a human as a pet before. I think I'll call you... Stinky."

Wan raised an eyebrow at him. "Um, my name is Wan."

"Stinky is more accurate." Aye-Aye said and winked.

– – –

_AN: and there we go, Wan is off into the Wilds now and good to really start his adventures. In the next chapter, I'll explore how he came by the idea to learn proper firebending from a dragon, and how he found and convinced one to teach him. _

_Thanks to everyone for reading, favourting, following and reviewing this story. _

_Reddevil47 asked if Wan will meet human friends along the way. We didn't see anyone else he met aside from the Air Nomads, but I think he did make some friends along the way, but the episodes went over his learning of Water and Earth so quickly we didn't get any idea who he might have met. We know he travels for a year before he goes to the South Pole to face Vaatu at the day of Harmonic Convergence, so there's plenty of time for him to make some new friends._

_I am planning to also write about what happened to him after imprisoning Vaatu, so this story is far from over. We know he made sure most Spirits went back to the Spirit World before he closed the portals off completely, so that's probably a pretty big adventure, too. Not all the Spirits are nice, remember Aang's encounter with Koh the Face Stealer? Yeah. I think mastering all four elements and defeating Vaatu was only the beginning of it all._

_Stay tuned for new chapters. I'll be having a bit more time to write soon, so you won't have to wait too long for new content. _


	6. Mastery of Fire

**Chapter 6: Mastery of Fire**

It was a beautiful summer day. It was pleasantly warm and there was little to no wind. Wan lied on his back by the pond, with his hands behind his head, looking at the fluffy clouds slowly drifting by in the deep blue sky. The world was calm and peacefull and he didn't have a thing to worry about. He was well rested, his stomach was full and he felt healthy and strong. For the first time since long, probably even for the first time in his life, he was perfectly happy.

He lived in the woods with the Spirits for a few weeks now. Aye-Aye allowed him to stay at the oasis and Wan helped him out with keeping the place clean and recieving guests. He had learned much about the Spritis, most importantly that they weren't so different from humans in that they simply wanted to live a happy life. Alot of them visited the oasis every day and he was making some good friends. Most of them had given him odd looks and some downright distrusted him in the beginning, but they were getting used to his presence and accepted him at last. He even got along pretty well with the blue frog Spirit he'd stepped on during his first night in the forest.

Sometimes, though, he wondered how Jaya and Yao were doing. He hadn't had the chance to say goodbye and he regretted that deeply. His new friends were great, but Spirits weren't humans and there were still many things Wan didn't understand about them, just like they didn't understand alot about humans. He didn't know his old friends had heard from Cheng the hunter that he was alive and that the Spirits were now his allies. The whole city knew who he was and they whispered his name as if he were a mythical being of great power. Even the Chu's in their palace started to think of him as more of just a banished peasant.

But Wan wasn't aware of any of those things so he just continued laying by the pond looking at the clouds. He was getting a bit bored now. He sat up and made a flame in his hand. He didn't really need the power of fire now that the Spirits weren't enemies anymore, but he did use it from time to time, playing around a bit, curious how far he could go with his ability. He had the feeling there had to be so many more possibilities besides just shooting fireballs from his hands.

He realized he would need better control over fire if he wanted to help the Spirits and animals in the woods defend themselves from the hunters. They hadn't come back yet, but they would someday, and Wan wanted to be ready. He just didn't have any ideas of how he could improve more.

He picked a fallen leaf from the ground and lit it with fire from his hand. He put it down in front of him. He started to focus all his attention to the flame, breathing in and out slowly, attempting to slow the fire down for as long as possible before it consumed the leaf. It was an exercise in control he'd come up with himself and he tried to do it as much as possible. He was gradually getting better. The first time, he'd burned up about ten leaves in a flash before he managed to let the eleventh one burn for a little bit longer.

His concentration was broken suddenly when he felt something wet touch his neck. The leaf turned to ash in a small burst. Wan turned around and saw it was the catdeer he'd saved from the hunters before.

"Oh, Mula..." he muttered. "How many times do I have to tell you you can't bother me when I'm practicing."

The animal blinked and pressed her nose against Wan's skin again. He smiled and scratched behind her ears. The catdeer was never far away from where he was and he'd gotten quite attached to her and had given her a name. She was large enough for him to ride on and intelligent enough to learn how to handle a human on her back. Wan practiced riding almost as often as controlling fire.

He gently pushed Mula away from him and looked for a new leaf to light up. He had managed to let the fire burn so slowly it barely moved, when Aye-Aye came back from the woods. He curiously looked over Wan's shoulder for as long as he let the leaf burn.

"You're getting pretty good at that." he said when Wan was finished.

"Thanks. I just wish I could figure out what I can do more, or have someone to practice with."

"Spirits can't learn to use fire." Aye-Aye explained. "Only humans can do that. It's rather extraordinary, you know. I'm almost jealous."

Wan chuckled. "Almost?"

"Well, I honestly wouldn't want to look or smell like a human, even if I could learn to use fire."

"You're so good at giving compliments." Wan responded, smiling.

"I try my best." Aye-Aye said. "You know," he continued after thinking for a while. "I do have an idea of how you could improve yourself. You need a teacher."

Wan frowned. "I guess you're right. But as far as I can tell, I'm the only human around trying this stuff. I can't go back to my city and other cities could be weeks traveling away, and even if I reach one, I can't be sure if someone there could teach me."

"Well," Aye-Aye said. "I do know of another kind of creature that can use fire like you can. But it could potentially be very dangerous to go find it."

"What are you talking about?" Wan asked.

"A dragon." the lemur Spirit simply answered.

Wan's eyes widened. "A dragon? Do they even exsist?"

"Of course they exsist," Aye-Aye rolled his eyes at his friend's ignorance. "There's not many of them around, but they're real alright."

"A dragon..." Wan thought that through for a moment. "Dragons can breathe fire, I know that much. Where can I find one?"

"They usually live close to warm places, like hot springs or volcanoes. I know there's some hot springs up the river, at about half a day's travel, but I'm not sure if a dragon lives there."

"It won't hurt to go take a look, right?" Wan said and got to his feet enthousiastically.

"You need to be carefull," Aye-Aye warned him. "Dragons are very intelligent. You can't force it to do anything against its will. You'll need to ask it if it wants to teach you and even then there's no telling what its response will be."

"It'll be fine. I have a pretty good feeling I'll manage to convince dragon to teach me about fire." Wan said, smiling widely.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it set you ON fire." Aye-Aye muttered.

"Hey, don't be so negative. I have a pretty good chance, right? If I were a dragon, I'd be happy to teach someone what I know."

"I hope you're right. Good luck."

"You're not coming with me?"

The Spirit shook his head. "I need to take care of the oasis. Besides, I don't feel like being charred to ashes."

"Oh. Well, alright then." Wan wasn't really looking forward to go find a dragon all on his own, but he felt like he didn't have much of a choice. He said goodbye to Aye-Aye and took Mula with him. He could travel faster riding on her back anyway.

The ride along the river up to the hills was a bit uneventfull, but Wan didn't mind terribly. Chances were he'd get enough action when he got to the hot springs. It was already past noon when he started to approach the source of the river. The forest was behind him, very few trees could take root in the rocky hillsides. Wan now walked beside Mula as they climbed up the rocks. He had to be carefull to not trip and break a leg or something. The enviroment became dryer and more desolate and he wondered if any animals lived here. After a while, he came across puddles with bubbling, steamy water in them. He was definately close to the hot springs, but there wasn't a dragon in sight. Then, he heard a roaring sound come from behind a hilltop closeby.

He instructed Mula to stay where she was and continued on his own. He reached the hilltop and looked down to see a large lake that filled the bottom of a valley. The water of the lake had an odd green colour and steam rose up from the surface. On a small shoreline to the left of the lake, he found what he had been looking for.

The dragon was about fifteen feet long, its snake like body covered in silvery white scales, with long, brown manes on its head and on its back. It had four legs with sharp claws and two horns on its head. Its eyes were yellow and it had many teeth. It flew up in the air suddenly and made a few loopings, while sending huge bursts of flames from its mouth.

Wan watched it fly for a while, impressed by the dragon's grace and vitality. He descended from the hilltop and approached the shoreline. He had no idea how he would ask the animal to teach him about fire, but he was sure he'd figure something out along the way.

The dragon noticed him walking closer and flew down to the ground. It stood relaxed but its eyes were fixed on Wan and he knew the animal was on guard. He took a deep breath and slowly walked closer.

"Uh, hello," he started, nervous and unsure what the right way of talking to dragons was. "My name is Wan. I, uh, I 'd like to learn from you how to use fire properly, if you're up for that."

The dragon still watched him closely and gave no response. It tilted its head slightly, blinking slowly. Then, it bent through his knees and soared back into the sky again.

"Wait! Come back!" Wan yelled. He sighed and watched the dragon fly ever higher, until the animal was a vague glimmer in the midday sun. It seemed to circle around, not intent on coming down anytime soon.

Wan angrily kicked a rock into the water. It looked like he'd come all the way out here for nothing. He looked around to see if anything else here might help him in some way, but aside from rocks and water and steam, there wasn't much to see. Maybe if he practiced using fire a bit, he might lure the dragon back down and he could talk to it again.

He started looking for a piece of wood or anything he could set on fire. He found a dead tree behind some rocks in the far off corner of the shoreline. With some effort, he broke off one of the dry branches and walked back to the where he'd first seen the dragon. He looked up to the sky and saw a vague silver line shoot for the sun. The light hurts his eyes and he averted them. He wiped some sweat from his brow and went to sit down, placing the tree branch in front of him. He lit one end of it with a flame from his hand. The branch burned fast, dry as it was, but Wan managed to slow it down, just like he'd done before with the leaves. He focused on the flames and on his breathing.

He had no idea for how long he kept the fire going. After some time, it was like nothing else exsisted anymore aside from himself, the branch and the flames. His sense of reality returned suddenly when he heard a swooping noise behind him. The dragon was back.

Wan got up and turned around, but immediatly stumbled backwards and almost fell over the burning branch. The dragon's head was barely an arms length away from him. Smoke wafted from its nostrils and its unblinking eyes glowed amber in the light of the setting sun. Wan swallowed and dared not blink or look away from the animal's gaze. The dragon opened its mouth and a wave of flames burst forward. Wan had no time to react.

But the flames didn't burn him. They surrounded him like a storm, but he was in the calm eye of it. The fire roared in his ears, and the sound filled his head. He saw a spectrum of colours pass by in the flames, fantastic colours he'd never seen before, beautifull like golden summer light on a meadow, like the soft hues the sunrise painted in the sky, like the spark of lighting in the dark before the thunder. He sighed deeply and something chanced in him forever.

The dragon stopped breathing fire and its gaze was still fixed on Wan. The young man looked back and there was now an understanding between the two that hadn't been there before. Wan bowed to his new teacher.

Training with a dragon was a strange but enlightening experience. First, the animal breathed several series of fireblasts that differed greatly in size and intensity, and Wan had to reproduce them as closely as he could. It was hard work and the dragon was not easily satisfied, but it was patient and never forced his student to do things he wasn't ready for yet. Wan went back every day to learn from the dragon. He learned new things every time, and his control over the element grew. The dragon started to move along with him as he practiced series of moves and stances that helped improve his mastery. Sometimes, some of his Spirit friends came with him to watch him train and they started calling his moves the 'dragon dance'. He had to admit, it did feel alot like dancing as he shifted through the stances he'd learned.

Time passed by and Wan became better and better. Not only could he now determine perfectly how large he wanted to make a flame, he could control fire from another source too, and he had learned to not only produce flames from his hands, but from his feet as well. He felt incredible every time he used fire and the more he practiced, the more he felt like his ability had not been given to him not so long ago, but that he had been born with it and known it all his life. He couldn't remember anymore what it felt like to not have the comforting presence, like a small candle that lit his heart, with him all the time.

But his newfound peace and happiness wouldn't last.

Unbeknownst to Wan, Cheng the hunter was recruiting new companions to join the Hunt and they would return to the woods soon. Cheng hadn't forgotten about the day he'd fled from the Wilds all alone because the Spirits had for some reason chosen to protect that banished kid. He hadn't gone back to woods in months, not that he was afraid, but he had all the trouble in the world finding people that wanted to join him on a new expedition. That, and the Chu's threatened to move him to the lower city outskirts if he didn't bring back some rare and delicous animal for them to eat soon. There was alot at stake for him. He liked his life the way it was and intended for it to stay that way.

At last, the day the Hunt returned to the woods began. Cheng and his three new hunters left the city before dawn. Dispite the early hour, many people came to look out of their doors and houses to see them leave. There was a large gathering at the market place in the middle of town and the people wished the hunters a safe journey and a good return home. But there were still whispers about Wan and his Spirit allies. Cheng noticed and he scowled. If he ran into that brat in the woods, he would teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget.

"People of our great city!" he announced in a loud and clear voice. "The Hunt is back!" The crowd cheered. "We fear no Spirit!" They cheered louder now. Cheng motioned his fellow hunters to follow and they finally left. They recieved the power of fire from the Lion Turtle and Cheng let them practice for a while, just to be sure their reflexes were sharp and their minds set on burning down whatever dangers they came across. Then, they traveled into the Wilds at last.

They walked for hours without incident, but they didn't see or hear from any animal or Spirit whatsoever. The woods were usually full of life and Cheng had no idea why everything was so quiet today. He had the awfull feeling every living being knew they were here and that they were watching their every move, preparing to attack them at any given time.

The life in the woods did know the Hunt had returned. Spirits had come to the oasis and had told Wan about the hunters. Wan had instructed everyone to stay away from them as much as possible. Some Spirits had portested this, intent on defending their home as best as they could, but Wan didn't want anyone to get hurt, neither Spirits or humans, and he believed the hunters would give up sooner or later if they didn't find anything to hunt down in the first place.

His plan seemed to work. After three days without finding anything, Cheng's men started to complain, but Cheng himself wasn't going to give up so easily.

"They're all hiding somewhere, I can tell." he said on the fourth night, as they were gathered around a campfire.

"Where, then?" one of the hunters responded. "We've been looking for days. We haven't found the slightest hint of any life close by. It looks to me like we scared everyhting off, even if we were carefull."

Cheng huffed. "It has something to do with that kid, Wan." he said, thoughtfully. "He's in charge of them somehow. Maybe if we could find him..."

"Then what? If the Spirits truly protect him, what can we do if hordes of them attack us? I'd say we turn back, or try to hunt in other parts of the woods." the hunter said and the other two noded in agreement. But Cheng only paid half attention, still lost in thought.

"We could try to lure him out!" he said suddenly, snapping his fingers. "If we start to burn down the woods, he'll have to come out and do something. Spirits can't use fire, they're afraid of it."

The other hunters gave him sceptical looks. "You'll do nothing but anger them," one of them said. "They'll come for us. Maybe they'll even attack the city. This is a really bad idea."

"Fine," Cheng growled angrily. "I'll do it on my own if I have to. I've hunted in the woods longer than you have. You can all go back for all I care." Now, the hunters didn't respond. They knew he was right. They needed his experience if they wanted to make it back home in one piece. No one said a word for the rest of the night. While Cheng was sure his plan would work, the other hunters were kept awake for hours while worrying what would happen the next day.

That morning was just as eerily quiet as the others before. Cheng was in a good mood nontheless. He even whisteled a bit while packing up. His companions looked at each other with concern. They traveled deeper into the woods than ever before, but nothing changed. Cheng suddenly made a halt when they walked into an open spot.

"Alright, men," he said. "Time to get his going." He created a large flame by waving his fist up, setting several trees closeby on fire. He had a satisfied look on his face.

"See?" He said and turned to his companions. "With the power of fire, there's nothing that can stop us!" He created more bursts of flames and the other hunters did the same, reluctantly. None of them saw a shade slip away into the woods.

"Help! Someone's got to stop them!" a high pitched voice cried and Wan looked up from the teacup he'd been staring in thoughtfully. A Spirit looking like a carrot came running to the oasis with a look of great panic on its face.

"What's going on?" Wan asked and got to his feet. The Spirit stumbled to a halt in the middle of the brige and pointed to the trees frantically.

"They're burning everything down with their fire!" it yelled loudly. "They're coming this way!"

Wan gritted his teeth. He had hoped the hunters would be on their way home by now, but it looked like he would have to deal with them after all. He was confident in his mastery of fire, but he had never had to use it to his defense since he started training. But he couldn't let the hunters burn the forest down.

Just as he had crossed the bridge of the oasis, they came out of the woods. Many Spirits and animals had fled to the island in the lake, hoping Wan could help them. He set his feet firmly on the ground and crossed his arms over his chest. He was ready to do anything to defend his home and friends from the attackers.

Cheng was the first out of the woods and he was surpised at the landscape that unfolded before him. He noticed the Spirits and animals in the oasis and a grin spread across his face. They had been hiding after all. Then, he saw a single person standing in the middle of the bridge that led to the island. He didn't recognize Wan at first. The skinny, sloppy teenager he remembered didn't exsist anymore. He seemed taller and had grown muscle. His hair was longer, he'd grown a beard and his clothes were different. He stood there with a calm confidence Cheng had rarely seen in anyone.

"Go away." Wan said firmly.

"You!" Cheng yelled and he jumped forward, sending a huge fireblast from his fist. He expected Wan to get out of the way, but the young man didn't even blink. Suddenly, he shifted on his feet, raised his arms and what he did next Cheng had never concidered possible. The burst of flames split open and Wan bent the fire away behind him. He shifted on his feet again and the flames followed his movements. Then, he moved his arms forward and Cheng's fireblast was now sent back to him. The hunters scattered away from the fire, screaming. They scrambled to their feet and ran off into the woods, never to return.

Wan let out his breath slowly as he watched te hunters run away. He hoped he scared them off for good. The Spirits in the oasis cheered and he smiled as he walked to them. He finally thought he could call himself a master of fire. He happily accepted a cup of tea from his friends.

Days later, the hunters returned to the city. Cheng was a changed man. He once had been confident and proud, but he now walked with his eyes lowered and his shoulders hunched. When the people asked him what had happened, he told them of his encounter with Wan.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said quietly. "The way Wan used fire, as if it was an extention of himself. What we hunters do, is child's play. He can bend it to his will. He's truly mastered it."

His story spread thoughout the city and by the end of the week, the people called Wan the Firebender, Master of Flames. He became a legend of sorts, and his story of how he stole the power of fire from the Lion Turtle, got banished into the Wilds and not only managed to survive there but also mastered the elemental power he had been allowed to keep, inspired many. After some time, groups of people that didn't want to live under the Chu's rule anymore, left the city after gaining fire from the Lion Turtle, intent on starting a new life in the Wilds. Wan's old friends Jaya and Yao were among the first to leave. With their firepower, they were sure they could survive and defend themselves against any danger, inspired by Wan and his deeds.

Wan himself wasn't aware of what happened. He had finally decided he wanted to see more of the world and eventually find another Lion Turtle city and meet new people. His Spirit friends were great, but he missed human company the most in his exile. He packed the few things he owned on Mula's back one morning and said goodbye to the oasis and the Spirits. They wished him good luck and he told them he'd miss them, but he would try to return one day.

And so, he set out on a new adventure, with the wind in his back and the light of the rising sun in his eyes.

– – –

_AN: woot! Fast update. Wan is finally an actual firebender and he's traveling the world now. I think you can guess what will happen in the next chapters. I'm excited to write them and will get them uploaded as soon as I can. Thanks for reading!_


	7. Separation

**Chapter 7: Separation**

Wan stood on his toes, reaching above his head for a delicious looking apple. His fingertips scraped the bottom of the fruit, but he couldn't get a grip on it. He already held several apples in his other arm, but he was hungry and happy to have finally found a tree with edible fruit growing on it. He jumped, his hand clutched the apple and he snatched it off the branch. He landed clumsily on his feet and unable to refind his balance, he dropped all the other apples and fell on his back. Mula made a noise and curiously watched her master's antics.

Wan got to his feet, rubbed his back a bit and went to pick up the apples. They were small, yellow, perfectly round and sweet to the taste. He ate three of them and put three more in his pack, in case he got hungry along the way. Which was probably going to happen. Back when he still lived in the Spirit oasis, he never really had to worry about finding food, since there grew fruit trees by the pond and the woods were full of fruits and plants and the river full of fish. All he had to do was just go and take whatever he felt like when he got hungry.

But the oasis was now far away and Wan had left the woods behind quite some time ago. He now traveled through a land filled with hills, covered in grass that reached just over his ankles, with only here and there a lonely, bent tree. There always seemed to be alot of wind here, clouds racing by in the sky, and they often carried rain. Today, the weather was nice, though, and Wan tried to travel fast on sunnier days. He was getting a bit sick of the unchanging landscape. It looked peacefull, but the grass went on hill after hill and food was scarce. The sooner he found a forest or a lush valley, the better.

He fed an apple to Mula and while she was eating, he let his gaze wander over the hills, in search of any sign they might end soon. They stretched ever to the horizon, like and endless ocean of green. He sighed. He had been wandering for weeks on end and started to lose count of how long he'd been away. The wind tugged his clothes and messed with his hair. It was getting colder and when he looked behind him, he saw another batch of rainclouds swiftly drifing his way. He sighed again and got on Mula's back. Maybe he could manage to find some cover this time.

But the rain came and soaked his clothes and his belongings and there was no sign of shelter anywhere. Mula plodded through the muddy grass, her head hanging and her fur dripping. Wan sat hunched in his only blanket against the cold, but he was wet to his skin already. It didn't look like the downpour would stop anytime soon. He rubbed some drops out of his eyes, trying to keep focus on what lay ahead, even if it was just more grass and hills.

The rain didn't stop all night and he had to make camp at the bottom of what seemed the thousandth hill they'd passed. Wan curled up in his blanket and Mula nudged her body against his, in an attempt to share what little warmth of their own they had left. Wan's nose was runny and he sniveled and sneezed, and he was hungry again. He'd eaten the last apples hours ago and they hadn't been enough to calm his rumlbing stomach. He drifted away into a light sleep from time to time, often woken up again by gusts of wind that blew the rain into his face. By morning, the clouds drifted apart and the sun rose in a virtually empty sky, and Wan felt absolutely miserable.

His head hurt, his throat was soar and couldn't seem to get warm. He barely had the energy to move, let alone get up and travel further. Mula pressed her nose against his neck but he pushed her away. The catdeer seemed confused, she knew they should be moving on to find food and water. She was hungry too and while she could last longer without nutrition, she still needed it. Wan pulled his still damp blanket tighter around himself and attempted to sleep a bit. Mula gently pushed his head with hers to see if he was going to get up soon.

"Just a bit longer, we'll be on our way soon..."

But Wan didn't get up for hours. He didn't really sleep, and often just stared at the sky, while the clouds flying by formed odd swirling patterns in his vision. He shivered and felt hot one moment and cold the next. Mula lay in the grass next to him, patiently watching her master toss and turn in his illness.

In his clouded mind, Wan started to realize he would have to get up eventually and see if he could find a cure or someone to help him. These hills couldn't last forever and if there really were dozens of other Lion Turtles, he'd have to be close to one now. The world couldn't be so big a person could travel for weeks and weeks on not meet anyone else. He got up at last, slowly and feeling dizzy, but he managed to get on Mula's back. The catdeer didn't need much encouragement and swiflty found the easiest path through the land. It stayed dry the whole day and the sunlight filtering through the racing clouds managed to warm Wan up a bit, but the longer he traveled, the sicker he felt. He couldn't focus and often slipped away into a half sleep.

He opened his eyes and saw a strange, white circle dance in front of his vision. He frowned, blinked a few times and the sphere became clearer and stopped dancing. He realized it was the full moon. It was night. He lay on his back and could feel grass touching his right hand, but his left hand felt oddly wet. He turned his head and saw moonlight reflecting in the water of a small pond. He blinked again and wondered when he got here and for how long he'd been laying here unconcious. He still felt sick and he didn't seem to have gotten any better. He closed his eyes again but they flew open immediatly when he realized he hadn't seen Mula anywhere. A surge of panic cleared up the fog in his mind a bit and he sat up quickly, but his head started spinning again. He rubbed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He scrambled to his feet, only now noticing he still had his blanket with him, and took a better look at his surroundings.

The full moon was bright enough to light a small valley in the hills. The same grass grew here too, but there were some small trees and bushes as well. A small stream flooded into the pond, flowing down in a series of small waterfalls from some rocks at the back end of the valley. Wan took a few hesitant steps and tried to focus.

"Mula?" His voice was cracking and barely made it past a whisper. The catdeer was nowhere in sight. The foggy feeling returned and clouded his thoughts. He vaguely started to realize that, with all his possessions, means of faster travel and his only companion in the wilderness gone, he was in big trouble. But he was so, so sleepy. Maybe if he rested for little while, he could clear his mind again and concentrate on finding Mula.

It was a cold night and that was probably helping Wan more than he realized. The coolness in the air prevented him from completely losing his focus and he slowly wandered out of the small valley, his head bowed and his feet dragging. But he was on the move. He tried calling for Mula several times, but his voice was only a mutter in the night. The wind rose again and chilled him to the core, but he kept his legs going, stubbornly telling himself he'd be alright and as long as he kept moving, he would find Mula.

He had no idea for how long he wandered. He suddenly stopped and saw he was standing on the edge of another valley, a bigger one this time. It too had a river flowing down into it, but there was something else there that made Wan frown in surprise. There were several rows of tall, stone pillars standing at the bottom of the valley. Most of them were tilted and some had fallen over, and they looked like many broken fingers reaching for the sky in the pale moonlight. All the way at the back of the rows, there was a wall with a part of a roof still supported by three cracked pillars, though it seemed to be held up mostly by the roots and branches of a gigantic tree. While it didn't look like anyone had lived in these ruins for a very long time, Wan was still filled with hope at the sight of something hinting human civilization for the first time in his weeks of traveling. He made his way down in the valley and went to the giant tree. He found dry wood and managed to make a fire and he only now realized what an idiot he'd been for not thinking of keeping himself warm with his own fire. The wood gave off a nice scent and it burned slowly and steady. Maybe if Mula was around, she'd be attracted by the light and would find him at last. With that hopefull thought, Wan fell asleep as he was staring into te flames.

When he woke up again, he was still alone and it was still dark. Or was it night again? It didn't seem unrealistic he had slept an entire day. He still felt sick and his mouth was dry. His stomach growled loudly dispite his illness and he knew he would need to find something to drink at the very least. His fire had gone out hours ago and he was cold. The still full moon shone through the branches of the tree and Wan noticed its light reflected oddly on the wall next to him. Or rather, part of the wall: a giant circle, taller than any man, was inlayed in the rock and was almost as pale as the moon itself. Wan stared at it and felt strangely mesmerized. He shook his head after a while and tried to get up. Then, he noticed something closeby that hadn't been there before. By the remains of his campfire, there were four bowls: one was bigger than the others and was filled with water. The three others contained fruit and edible roots. Wan stared at the bowls, dumbfounded. He wasn't alone in these ruins.

He hesitated for a long time before he even touched the bowls. He got up, created a flame in his hand and went searching the ruins. They were quiet and nothing moved, but Wan didn't have the feeling something hostile was present. He started to feel light headed and decided to go back and eat and drink. He needed it desperatly and he didn't really care anymore who or what had put the food there. He gathered more wood on his way back and made a new campfire. He felt much better after eating and drinking and his illness seemed to clear up, but he still felt exhausted. He stared into the fire and could barely keep his eyes open.

"That's alot better, isn't it?" a voice spoke suddenly. Wan yelped, jumped to his feet and conjured a flame in his hand, his back pressed against the wall. Then, he noticed a young woman standing by the campfire. He stared at her and slowly lowered his hand, the fire dying as he did. She was absolutely beautifull. Pale, smooth skin without any imperfections. Light hair cascading all the way down her back, a heart shaped face blessed with large, deep grey eyes with long lashes, a small, straight nose and full, soft looking lips that curled in a smile. She was completely naked. Wan swallowed and didn't say anything.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I startled you." the woman said and she stepped closer. Her hair seemed to blow in a wind that wasn't there and her skin was oddly glowing.

"...You're a Spirit." Wan finally managed to say, in a croaky voice. He immediatly felt like an idiot.

"Why, yes, I am." the woman responded. "My name is Tui. I've been watching you for a while. You seemed in trouble, so I helped you out a bit."

"Thanks." Wan said and he was glad his voice sounded a bit more steady now. He tried his best to keep his eyes focused on her face, but his gaze wandered down to the rest of her body nontheless. He tried to look at the sky instead and felt heat rush to his cheeks. Tui noticed and giggled a bit.

"Does this bother you? I haven't spoken to a human in a long time, and I've forgotten alot about them." She said. She twirled around and was suddenly clad in a white, sleeveless robe. Wan slowly let the breath out he only now noticed he'd been holding in. Tui went to sit down by the fire and he did the same.

"Are you lost?" she asked. Wan shrugged.

"I guess I am a bit," he responded. "I'm traveling the wilds to find another Lion Turtle city. But I got sick and I've lost my catdeer Mula."

"I'm sorry about that." Tui said. "I'm sure you'll find her again. But, tell me. Why do you travel on your own? I haven't seen a human this far from a Lion Turtle in ages."

"Well, I..." Wan shrugged again. "It's kind of my own fault. I stole the power of fire from the Lion Turtle I lived on and I got banished because of that. I lived in the Wilds with the Spirits for a while, but now I'd like to find other humans."

Tui nodded. "I already thought you didn't seem like most other humans nowadays." she said. "You remind me a bit of the people that built this temple a long time ago." Wan frowned.

"I didn't know humans used to live outside of Lion Turtle cities."

"Once, humans and Spirits lived together in harmony. We knew much more about each other then. It all happened ages ago and the world has changed much since. I'm old, even by the calculations of Spirits." Tui lowered her gaze and started into the campfire. She went quiet for a long time and Wan didn't know what to say.

"You know what," she suddenly said. "I'll help you find your lost pet. Stay here, I'll be back soon." She stood up and ran off into the night. Wan was surprised by her sudden departure. He went looking for her in the ruins, but she had dissapeared without a trace. He sighed and went back to sit by his campfire, thinking about his encounter.

He had fallen asleep again when Tui came back. She had found Mula wandering in the hills, following Wan's trail. Wan didn't wake up but he stirred in his sleep when Mula happily sniffed his hair and lay down next to him. Tui threw some more wood on the fire. She went away for a while and came back with more bowls with food and water and a supply of dried fruit neatly packed in leaves and she put it in Wan's pack for along the way. He was now deep asleep, breathing slowly. She knelt down beside him and put a hand on his cheek.

"Try to travel east as much as possible," she whispered. "You will come across more firtile lands and you will find a Lion Turtle soon. Good luck, little human."

She rose and dissapeared quietly into the night.

Wan woke up at sunrise and was immensly relieved to find Mula had returned. He checked if all his stuff was still in his pack and luckily, nothing was missing. He found the food Tui had left and he wondered how much of the encounter had been real and how much of it he dreamt or imagined. He had still been feverish, after all. Then again, you never knew with Spirits. He refilled his water pouch by the river and got on Mula's back. They left the ruins and the valley and Wan gazed around until he felt an odd hunch to go eastward. By the next day, the land changed and the hills rose higher and became mountains. The peaks in the distance were covered in everlasting snow and the the steep slopes were dark and uncompromizing wildernesses, but the valleys Wan now traveled through were green and full of life.

He took his time wandering in the valleys. The woods reminded him alot of the enviroment of the Spirit oasis and the longer he stayed, the less he had to worry about finding enough food and water. The journey through the hills had taught him he was still vulnerable, dispite his knowledge of the Wilds and the power of fire. He spent weeks in the mountains, enjoying the peace and beauty around him. There were many Spirits living there and Wan got to know some of them pretty well. But as the days passed, he became restless and lonely. He often caught himself thinking about Jaya and Yao, what they were doing right now and if they thought of him and missed him sometimes. He wondered if the hunters had ever tried to attack the Spirit oasis again and if Aye-Aye and the others were alright. He wandered around aimlessly, Mula never far behind, deep in thought and with an almost saddened expression on his face.

One day, he came across a pond with a small waterfall pouring into it. In the middle of the pond there was a round, flat rock and on that rock, a Spirit looking like a monkey wearing a habit was meditating. Dispite having met alot of Spirits before, Wan still had to blink a few times before what he was seeing sank in. He quietly backed away, not wanting to disturb the meditating Spirit, but then, he had idea. Where one could find peace of mind, two could. He went to sit in front of the pond, mimicking the Spirit's posture. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his breathing. He realized he hadn't done this in ages, not since he left the oasis in fact. He'd had alot on his mind during his travels. He immediatly felt calmer now that he had rediscovered what had been an essential part of his training with fire.

But his worries didn't calm down so easily. He knew he was starting to spend too much time in the lush valleys and he was never going to find any other humans if he stayed here. But he still had no idea where he could find other Lion Turtles. He was pretty convinced they exsisted; the Spirits he'd been talking to all claimed there were others, but most of them didn't really care about human affairs so no one had been able to even vaguely point him in a good direction. He couldn't stay and wait for one to pop up, that wasn't going to happen. But he had to admit it to himself: he was afraid, and he hated it. He was scared of being lost and alone in the Wilds again, with no help or anyone even knowing he exsisted. He didn't think he'd be so lucky twice that a friendly Spirit would come to the rescue. One thing he knew about Spirits was that most of them didn't care for humans at all.

He had to move on, he wanted to, but he was afraid and he didn't know what to do about it.

"You're doing it wrong." a voice rang. Wan opened his eyes and found the meditating Spirit looking at him.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said: you're doing it wrong." the Spirit answered. "I can tell. Meditating is about finding peace of mind, but you, you're thinking so hard about your troubles your face runs risk of cracking!"

"I... Um... How can I do it right, then?" Wan asked, curious but weirded out a bit.

"Simple. Forget about your troubles. They're not important." the monkey Spirit nodded wisely. Wan raised an eyebrow.

"How can you know my problems aren't important?"

The Spirit giggled. "First of all, you're a human." He said. "Your life is over in a flash anyway, so why worry in the first place?" He laughed and aparently was having so much fun he couldn't concentrate on his meditation anymore, and started scolding Wan for disturbing him. The young man got up and walked away to avoid trouble, but as he walked, he realized the monkey Spirit had been right. He didn't want to spend his entire life here and wonder what could've happened. So he had a bit of a setback during his travels. He had survived it and was doing great. He thought of the time he still lived in the Lion Turtle city and how he had taken risks every day just to stay alive, and he hadn't cared at all if he would still be around to see another day. If he fell and hit his head on a rock and broke his neck, it wouldn't make a difference. So why worry in the first place?

Wan saw everything in a new light. He went to find Mula, got on her back and made her run, the wind blowing in his face and he felt a sense of freedom he hadn't felt since he traveled through the hills. He was back on the road again and he didn't care anymore about the bad things that could happen, and he was all the more excited about the good things that could happen.

The next days took him deeper into the mountains until he finally started to see signs that he was getting out of them. He was looking forward to a change of enviroment, no matter how good he had it here. One morning, he was refilling his water pouch in a shallow river at the bottom of a wide valley in the lead-out of the mountains, when he suddenly felt a tremor in the ground. He looked up to see animals and Spirits run towards him. He didn't have time to react, but it didn't matter; they all ran straight past him, as if they were fleeing from something bad. Wan looked at them in confusion and he tried to get the attention of one of the Spirits to find out what was going on. One Spirit shaped like a tree stump stopped for a few seconds.

"The great Spirits are battling!" He waved his arms around frantically. "They'll destroy the whole valley! You need to get away!" With that, he ran off into the woods. Wan felt another rumble go through the ground. He still didn't have much of an idea what was going on., but if it involved other Spirits, maybe he could do something to make them stop fighting. He called Mula to him, jumped on her back and went deeper into the valley.

He immeditaly saw why the ground was trembling. The two fighting Spirits were huge. They rolled from one side of the valley to the other in their struggle. Wan couldn't get a very good look at first, but the two beings seemed to look oddly alike. They were both diamond shaped, with long tails and many bands which they used to strangle and beat each other. They had no recognizable faces, but they had a diamond shaped center with elaborate patterns around it. They were basically mirror images of each other. The only difference was that one Spirit was white, with a blue pattern and the other was black with a red pattern.

Wan had no idea who they were and why they were fighting, but he could see they were doing some major damage to the woods. Many trees lay broken to splinters, the ground had deep craters everywhere and there were many animals that hadn't gotten away in time. Wan couldn't bear to witness the destruction of a place so beautifull and calm and although he realized he put his own life at risk while trying to break the two fighting Spirits apart, he felt it was worth it. He had learned a long time ago there was nothing good about mindless violence.

He got of Mula's back and ran to the Spirits, creating a big fireblast in an attempt to get them to stop. It seemed to work as they both turned their attention to him, but they still held on to each other.

"You need to stop right now or you'll destroy everything!" he yelled.

"This is none of your concern!" The white Spirit exclaimed, in a voice that sounded female.

"It is when the lives of Spirits and animals are in danger!" Wan called out.

"Please, help me!" the black Spirit cried, in a male sounding voice.

"Don't involve the human, this is between us!" the female Spirit spat, turning her attention back to her adversary. The black Spirit pleaded Wan to help him once again.

"Use your fire to set me free!" He said. "She has tormented me for ten thousand years!"

Wan couldn't comprehend what a long time ten thousand years were, but he did understand the black Spirit needed his help. He created another fireblast, hoping to break the two apart, but the white Spirit extended one of her bands and swept him off his feet and into the bushes. The black Spirit took advantage of her distraction and broke loose, but the white Spirit still desperatly held onto one of his arms. Wan scrambled out of the bushes, plucking leaves out of his hiar, and he saw an opportunity to free the black Spirit. He made a third fireblast, aiming at the entangled bands. He made a clean hit and there was a flash and a roaring noise, and the black Spirit was free, while the white Spirit cried out in agony.

The freed Spirit gracefully flew up in the air and rested himself on a nearby hilltop.

"Thank you, human," He said. "You have performed a great service for the Spirits." With that, he soared back into the sky again and dissapeared behind the mountains.

The white Spirit then turned her attention to Wan and dispite her lack of visible eyes, he still felt an immensly furious glare directed to him. But he wouldn't allow this Spirit, who aparently enjoyed harassing others, intimidate him.

"Do you have any idea what you have done?" she said angrily.

"Yes!" he answered. "I helped that Spirit who was being bullied by you!" If she could yell at him, he could yell right back.

"You have no idea who I am, do you." The white Spirit said, sounding less angry now, but still sharp.

"Should I?" Wan said sarcastically.

"My name is Raava." the Spirit said. "I am the force of light and peace in this world. That Spirit you freed is Vaatu, the force of chaos and darkness. I was keeping him under control. Until you came along."

Wan opened his mouth, but the gravity of the situation suddenly hit him like an avalanche. It was like someone had turned the world upside down. This couldn't be right. This _wasn't_ right. What just happened? What had he done?

"I freed Vaatu... and let chaos escape into the world?" He looked up to Raava and he knew she was being absolutey serious.

"Precisely." She said. "This is why humans have no place interfering with Spirits!" The sharpness returned to her voice and Wan flinched a bit. "I can only hope I can track down Vaatu before it is too late!"

"Let me help you." Wan said, in an almost desparate tone. He still couldn't grasp how catastrophic what he had done was, but it was his fault and all he could do was try and set things right as best as he could.

"No!" Raava snapped. "You've done enough already!" She flew up into the air in the same fashion Vaatu had and dissapeared into the same direction he had flown off into, leaving Wan behind in the valley. He stared at the sky for a long time, wondering what would happen now. The world didn't look or feel any different. Mula came up to him and licked his hand. Wan slowly shook his head, as if trying to rid himself of dark thoughts. He figured Raava was probably right and there wasn't anything he could do. What did he know of battling chaos and darkness anyway? She was the expert and she knew best what had to be done now.

These thoughts were reassuring enough to calm Wan's guilt for the time being. He got on Mula's back again and left the valley behind. He still needed to find another Lion Turtle city, after all. But that night, he couldn't get any rest and when he finally fell asleep, he dreamt of a dark shadow creeping around and consuming everything in its path.

– – –

_AN: oh, he's done it now! Sorry this took so long, I didn't have as much time to write as I'd hoped. I tried to put in some things that happened to Wan while he was traveling, since it looked like he did so for quite some time before running into Raava and Vaatu. Being on your own in the wilds isn't all it's cracked up to be, after all. As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, etc., and see you in the next._


	8. As the wind blows

**Chapter 8: As the wind blows**

It had been three days since Wan's encounter with the Spirits Raava and Vaatu. As much as he tried, he couldn't let go of the guilt he felt whenever he thought of what he'd done. He tried to ignore it and the feeling numbed as time passed, but it never really dissapeared. He tried to be busy as much as possible, never taking long breaks from traveling and always looking for any signs of what still was the ultimate goal of his journey: to find other people.

He had left the high mountains behind and was now riding through the last hills before the land finally said goodbye to the tall peaks in the distance. The trees grew tall here and stood relatively far away from each other, surrounded by bushes and tall grass. There were many ponds and little rivers and many small animals rustled in the vegetation and around the water. The land was peacefull and calm and Wan felt that if he would find more humans here, he could happily live with them. So far, the only living beings he found were the animals and here and there a Spirit in the distance.

The morning of the third day, he was eating breakfast by the remains of his campfire he'd made last night on the edge of a small pond, between the roots of a massive, ancient tree. It was windy but there were little to no clouds in the sky and the sun was bright and warm. Mula was slowly cleaning herself with her tongue, and Wan was staring at a bunch of lines he had drawn in the soil the night before with a stick. He started to recount them using his fingers, mouthing numbers as he did, but he was already pretty sure his calculation was right. He had been banished from the Lion Turtle two years ago today. Two years of living in the Spirit Wilds, learning about them and about nature, and how to control fire. Two years since he had last had any contact with humans at all, if he left out his encounters with Cheng and the hunters, which hadn't been pleasant to begin with. He recalled the last time he had heard friendly words had been on the day he had led the rebellion to the Chu's palace. Him and Jaya had been talking about what they'd do when they had all the food they had ever wanted. Wan couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact literally years had gone by since then, but at the same time, it felt as if it happened a lifetime ago.

It might as well have, he thought as he bend over to his right and looked into the water, to see his reflexion staring back at him. He couldn't recall the last time he had seen himself in a mirror. He knew it had been before his banishment, because he remembered having shorter hair and younger eyes. He scratched his beard and decided he really needed to shave. He wanted to look clean and civilized if he was going to meet other humans. He turned away from his reflexion and dug up his knife from his pack. He had owned it for as long as he could remember and he had never really used it. He didn't need a weapon since he could control fire, so the knife had been sitting in his pack uselessly but dispite having cut his fingers on it several times already, he hadn't thrown it away. It was sharp and clean and Wan figured it would do just fine to at least groom his beard a bit. He managed to cut himself in three places but he was glad to have it over with. He had left his chin unshaven, because he thought it suited him. And maybe because he wanted to look good for the ladies.

He resisted the urge to slap his forehead. There was no telling when he would meet any humans. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month or he could just as well spend another two years on his own, and now, of all things he could concider, he was thinking about looking good in case he met a girl.

"Well, it's not impossible," he muttered to himself and looked back into the water at his reflexion. "More like, pretty darn possible." His image in the pond suddenly looked a bit sad back at him when he realized how lonely he really was. Sure, he had Mula's company, but she couldn't talk back and in the end, she was still just an animal. He didn't think he could go without any human contact for another two years. He got up suddenly, startling Mula a bit, and started packing. The sooner he moved on, the sooner he would find another Lion Turtle and finally, other humans and hopefully, new friends.

It was already well into the afternoon when he stopped by a small river to take a break. As he was refilling his water pouch, he noticed prints in the mud by the riverbank. At first, he didn't think much of them, but he went to take a closer look anyway. They looked like the imprints of soft boots and there were many of them. The tracks came to and lead away from the river into the grass, upwards over what looked like a path going up a hillside, towards a woodland. Wan inhaled sharply and his heart sped up. Spirits didn't leave traces like this, not so many and not so obvious, not even in places where they gathered. He followed the path up the hill, Mula close behind him, and a wide smile appeared on his face. He heard noises coming from the bushes on the hilltop and he started to run. The leaves of the tall trees rustled and it wasn't the wind. Wan could hear voices now. He jumped through the bushes and stumbled upon an open spot in the woodland. What he saw there, surpassed all his expectations.

There were humans, about ten of them. As far as Wan could see, they were all male and they all had shaved heads and blueish bands tattooed in the length of their arms and starting from their foreheads, over the top of their heads and down their necks. They wore loose pants and robes in brown and yellow hues, and they held large baskets filled with fruit they picked from the surrounding trees. The most fantastic thing was how the men gathered the fruit. Anyone else would need a ladder to get to the height the fruit grew on, but these men levitated off the ground, up into the branches, basket and all. There was little to no wind in the woods, but the clothes of the gatherers blew around them as they flew upwards, as if caught in a swift gust. Wan stood by the edge of the clearing for minutes, speechless. Not only had he finally found other people, they too had the power of an element, but it was air instead of fire.

"More humans!" he exclaimed happily. "I finally found you!" He stepped towards them, but his enthousiasm didn't quite have the effect he expected. The men looked up with surprised and even frightened looks on their faces and some dropped their baskets. As if they had been given a signal, they ran away together to the other end of the clearing, while using their air power to propell themselves upwards over the bushes and through the trees. Wan had no idea what he had done wrong. He watched them flee for a moment before realizing he wouldn't get to tell any of them he didn't mean any harm if they were all gone. He got on Mula's back and went after the air people, but as he rode through the bushes, Mula suddenly skidded to a halt. Wan had just enough time to see the last fruit gatherer jump off the edge of a cliff and use his air power to soar away to a hilltop sticking out of clouds. Due to Mula's sudden stop, Wan was catapulted over her head and almost rolled off the cliff. He held onto the edge of the rock, his legs dangling over the mists that filled a deep, wide chasm. Catching his breath, he crawled back on the edge, eyes wide with fright.

"That was close..." he muttered, wiping some sweat of his forehead. Mula pressed her nose against his neck and he scratched behind her ears, but he stopped suddenly when he looked behind him to the mists in the ravine. The wind rose and cleared the mists up a bit, to reveal that the hilltop the flying people had fled to, was the great shell of a Lion Turtle, and the massive, ancient animal was hovering above the clouds. Wan spotted houses amongst the trees and saw people around them. A smile appeared on his face as he got up to take a closer look. He finally found another Lion Turtle. Now all he had to do was find a way to get on the great animal's back.

He looked around a bit, but he didn't have any ideas. The distance from the cliff to the Lion Turtle was too great to jump without the power of air for support. Wan didn't think his fire power was strong enough to boost him over the clouds. He tried getting the attention of the people in the village by waving at them, but he didn't dare to use his fire for a signal, since that would probably scare them off rather then make them curious. He figured they must've never seen another human outside of their Lion Turtle, just like he hadn't known any others exsisted or that other elemental powers exsisted, so his fire was probably going to frighten them more. He dicided the only way to get to know these people was to wait for them to come back to the woods and then try to talk to them, but after all this time, he didn't think he had the patience anymore. He paced up a down by the edge of the cliff, desperatly trying to figure out a plan to cross the distance to the Lion Turtle without falling to his untimely death.

He heard something rustle behind him in the bushes and he turned around quickly, adopting a defensive stance in case it was a large animal or unfriendly Spirit. But it was a human coming out of the woods. He wore the same loose robes and had the same tattoos as the men from the Lion Turtle. He was reading a book and had a satchel filled with more books swung over his shoulder. He was taller than any person Wan had ever met. He wasn't short at all himself, but the other person towered a good head's lenght over him. The man looked up and dispite his length, Wan guessed he was still a few years younger than he was, judging by his smooth features and the innocence in his eyes. A look of complete surprise spread over the tall teenager's face. He dropped his book and stumbled backwards into the bushes, falling over a rock sticking out of the ground. Wan immediatly went to look if he didn't hurt himself.

"Are you alright?" he asked, pushing some branches aside and held out a hand to help the other man up. The teen looked at him as if he was seeing a ghost.

"It's fine," Wan said, smiling, holding his hand closer. "I'm friendly."

"I..." The young man opened and closed his mouth a few times, giving a nice impression of a fish suddenly washed ashore, but he did grab Wan's hand and allowed him to help him to his feet.

"Wh... Who are you supposed to be?" he finally mananged to say, a bit bulgy eyed.

"I'm Wan," Wan introduced himself. "I come from another Lion Turtle city, far away." The teenager gaped at him and he started to feel a bit uncomfortable.

"...You're really tall." he said, trying to break the silence.

"Uh... Sure am." The young man said, breaking out of his stupor at last. "Goodness, I'm sorry." he apoligized. "I just never thought I'd meet anyone outside of my village. My name is Hao." He bowed and Wan bowed back.

"It's okay." he said. "I didn't know other Lion Turtles exsisted for most of my life."

"This is amazing!" Hao exclaimed. "I gotta show you to the rest of the village!" He went to pick up his book, put it in his satchel and moved to jump over to the Lion Turtle.

"Wait," Wan said. "I can't fly like you can."

"Oh." Hao said, blinking. " Well, it's not really flying to begin with. I simply control the air currents around me. The Lion Turtle gives us the power of air so we can go into the Wilds more safely. Didn't your Lion Turtle give the power of air to you?"

Wan shook his head. "I was given the power of fire." He held out his hand and made small flame in his palm. Hao now really stared.

"This is mind blowing!" He said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Just wait till the Elder Fu hears about this! Oh, I have an idea." He walked back to Wan. "Get on my back," he motioned. "You look light, I'm sure I can carry you over to the village."

Wan nodded enthousiastically. He did feel a bit bad about leaving Mula behind, but Hao assured him she could be flown over too by others later. The catdeer didn't seem very keen on leaving solid ground anyway. So Wan got on Hao's back and the tall teenager ran up to the cliff and jumped. For a split second, Wan feared they wouldn't make it and he clung to Hao's shoulders for dear life, but the teen laughed and wind started to blow around them, carrying them safely across. They landed in a clearing just outside the village. Hao grabbed Wan's arm and dragged him to the largest building in the village. Along the way, Wan saw many other humans give him curious looks and some gasped at the sight of the stranger. He didn't have much time to take in what he was seeing, as Hao pushed him through the curtains shielding of the doorway to the big hut that appeared to be the center of his culture.

"Elder Fu!" the teen called out. "Look who I met! A stranger from another city!"

A short old man was sitting on some pillows in the center of the building. He was so frail looking he seemed to be swallowed by the robes he was wearing. He almost dropped the cup of tea in his hand when his eyes settled on Wan.

"By the four winds!" he exclaimed. Wan felt uncomfortable again under the old man's stare, but Hao beamed and started to explain how he met the stranger.

"My, my," Elder Fu said. "I know of old legends that tell of more Lion Turtles, but I never thought I'd meet someone coming from so far away."

The old man then started to ask Wan all sorts of questions, and he tried answering them truthfully, even if some didn't make a whole lot of sense. Wan suspected Elder Fu was a wise and great person respected by everyone in the village, but that he had a screw loose. Or two, he thought, after the Elder asked him if he ever saw a bison flying.

The rest of the day passed, and Wan was dragged all over the village by Hao, with Elder Fu not far behind. The village wasn't as big as the city he came from, and there weren't that much people living in it, but all the new faces, the voices and all the impressions were more than enough for Wan to take in in such a short time. He was exhausted by the end of the day. Hao took him to his house to introduced him to his family. His father was one of the men that had been out gathering fruit earlier that day and he apoligized many times before Wan told him it wasn't a big deal. Hao's mother was a nice lady and an excellent cook. Wan hadn't eaten this good in ages and he complimented the woman more than once.

"You're an excellent guest," she said, smiling, while refilling his plate for the third time. Later, they made him an extra bed in Hao's room and they spent a long time talking before finally sleeping.

"Tell me something, Wan." Hao asked. "You said you got banished from your city. There's something I don't get about that."

Wan looked at him and shrugged. "What's not to get?" he asked. "I did something forbidden and they punished me."

"I got that part." Hao answered. "It just seems pretty horrible you got punished because as far as I can tell, you were trying to help your friends. What's so wrong with that anyway?"

Wan didn't really have an answer. He had noticed the people in the village shared everything they had without question, even with him, a complete stranger, and everyone was happy. He realized the situation at his home Turtle had been messed up and that it wasn't so strange Hao was confused over the fact some people hogged all the recourses and power to themselfves and didn't care about anyone else but themselves. When he didn't say anything, Hao let the subject rest and told him of how he came up with some neat tricks using the power of air and that he might show Wan tomorrow, after he made him promise to demonstrate his fire power. With that, the two went to sleep. Wan dreamt he could fly, but he was suddenly taken out of the air by the same dark shadow that had haunted his dreams before.

The next day, he had forgotten all about his dream, and he discovered something about the air people that made him grow fonder of them. Aside from the humans, quite some Spirits lived in the village too. Most of them were small and looked like plants or animals and they behaved much like pets. The children played with them and the grown ups allowed them to help with everyday tasks. Wan had never imagined people could coexist with Spirits so well and he decided this was without a doubt the best place for him to stay and be happy. He got along well with Hao, who had decided to teach Wan how to read and write, after he found out his new friend didn't care much for books if they didn't have any pictures to look at. He had stared at Wan in disbelief when he told him he couldn't even write his own name.

Time passed and Wan spent his days getting to know the villagers, helping out where ever he could, and learning more every day. The air people had managed to fly Mula over to the Lion Turtle's back, although she had be calmed down after the frightfull event. Wan was glad to have her around, even if she was perfectly capable of suriving in the Wilds on her own. She was his companion and they had stuck together for a long time, so he wasn't going to leave her behind anywhere. Hao turned out to be a great friend, and even if he talked a bit too much, Wan was conent just listening. He could safely say he was just as happy here as he had been at the oasis and while he stayed curious of how other people on other Lion Turtles lived, he didn't concider leaving anytime soon. He couldn't know he would have to change his mind soon.

One afternoon, Wan wasn't particularly busy doing anything. He was sitting under a tree, satisfied with looking at the people passing by going about their daily bussiness. He was absent mindedly petting a bird-like Spirit, when he was snapped out of his daydreams by a sharp pain in his hand. He looked down to see the Spirit had pecked him with its sharp beak and his hand was bleeding. He saw the bird Spirit suddenly change from a gentle little blue being to a vicious, red and angry creature. It let out a shriek and flew up, attemting to peck at Wan's face. He scrambled to his feet, held his arms up reflectively and managed to beat the Spirit off him, but the bird flew away to focus its anger on something else. Wan stared at it in confusion. Spirits didn't attack someone so suddenly after deciding they liked you. Maybe he had hurt it in some way?

He heard screaming come from behind him and he turned around, alarmed. He saw the blue bird Spirit wasn't the only one that had undergone a violent transformation. He saw buildings get destroyed by the dark forms, he saw them attack people and themselves. It was as if the sunlight got blocked by a dark cloud and it was suddenly colder. Wan heard a noise and saw something move out of the corner of his eye. His quick reflexes from training with the dragon and having to survive in the Wilds saved him from getting his skull smashed by a dark Spirit with huge arms. The other people in the village weren't so lucky. They didn't know how to defend themselves, they never had to. Wan used his fire to defeat the Spirit that had attacked him, then ran to help anyone in danger. It had been a long time since he used the forms the dragon had taught him, and he was a little rusty at first. Luckily, the angry Spirits didn't seem to expect resistance and he managed to keep them at bay. Then, a shadow fell over the village.

Wan looked up and recognized the kite like form hovering above in the sky. It was the dark Spirit Vaatu. He had at least grown twice in size and Wan could feel his gaze fixed on him. He swallowed.

"So... We meet again, human." the dark Spirit said. Wan tore his eyes away from Vaatu when he heard screaming again. The villagers pointed to the sky, with frightened looks on their faces. Elder Fu stumbled out of his hut, almost tripping over his robes, eyes fixed on the dark form in the sky.

"It's the great Spirit of Darkness!" he exclaimed. "Where is his counterpart, the Spirit of Light?"

Wan felt his heart sink and the guilt he had almost forgotten about, returned harder than ever. He looked around to see the village he'd grown to love and the people he'd grown to care about, get thrown into chaos and destruction. This was all his fault. He barely had any time to feel bad, though, as he had to use his fire again to defend himself and the people around him. At least, he could do something to help stop this madness, he thought as he threw fireball after fireball at the angry Spirits_. _He focused on his breath and his moves and stances came more fluently now. The dark Spirits seemed to be backing down, but Vaatu laughed menacingly.

The shadows in the sky suddenly shifted and there was a swooping noise. The people down on the Lion Turtle saw a white flash like a shooting star launch itself at the dark Spirit, and he twisted and turned and the flash of light threw him out of the air and into the trees. It was Raava, and she flew up from the trees again, down to where the dark Spirits were and chased them away. Vaatu emerged from the trees, soaring up high, gathering the dark Spirits around him.

"How are you feeling since our split, Raava?" he said mockingly. "I've never been better. When Harmonic Convergence comes, I will destroy you forever." With that, he dissapeared into the distance, taking the twisted Spirits with him.

The villagers slowly dripped from out of their hiding places, gathered around the Light Spirit and looked at her in awe. Elder Fu came to her first and bowed as deep as his old back allowed him. Wan was the second, and although he had been happy to see Raava, he now felt her glare fixed on him again, while the guilt he felt was like a vicious beast clawing at his chest.

"I told you not to interfere!" she told him sharply.

"I had to do something. These people were in danger. " Wan answered, now feeling he was treated a bit unfair. Raava shifted ever so slightly and didn't say anything, but Wan didn't think she thought any better of him.

"Great Spirit of Light," Elder Fu said. "We are gratefull you saved us from the dark Spirits. But how did you become separate from Vaatu?"

"Ask him." Raava answered, giving a slight motion in Wan's direction, and a tense silence fell over the villagers gathered around.

Wan had been feeling guilty before, but that was nothing compared to the shame and sadness that now washed over him like a dark, polluted wave. The air people looked at him in confusion. He saw Hao's face in the crowd, but he didn't dare make eye contact.

"I didn't mean to." he heard himself say, his voice breaking. "Vaatu tricked me into freeing him. I'd take it all back if I could!"

"Calm down, son," Elder Fu said, putting a hand on Wan's shoulder. "Tell us what happened."

Wan hesitated, but started to tell how he met the great Spirits and that he had tried to make them stop fighting, in an attempt to save the valley they had been destroying in their struggle. He told that had no idea who the Spirits were and that Vaatu had pretended to be the victim, so he could be set free.

"This is grave news." Elder Fu said. He didn't seem anry or upset, but all the more saddened, which made Wan feel even worse about himself. Right now, he prefered someone would shout at him what an idiot he was.

"Now that Vaatu is free, he is turning other Spirits dark." Raava said. "This will happen again if I do not stop him."

"He was much bigger than before." Wan said, looking at the Light Spirit. "And you're smaller."

"As Light fades, Darkness grows." Raava answered in a sorrowfull tone. A silence fell over the village once again. The people stood with donwcast eyes, and even the smallest child seemed to realize that someting terrible had happened. Wan looked at their faces and his guilt threatened to swallow him whole. But he had never been the kind of person to give up when bad things happened. He had always tried to make the best of every situation he had gotten into. He had been poor and hungry for a big part of his life, but he had found happiness with his friends nonetheless. He had been banished into the dangerous Spirit Wilds, but he had survived and even thrived. He had been sick and lonely, but he had made it through to find hope and joy exsisted everywhere. This was by far the greatest drawback he had stumbled upon, but sitting in a corner feeling sorry had never helped anyone.

"What can I do to help you stop Vaatu?" he said, turning to face Raava.

"I already told you I don't want your help." she snapped.

"Please, Raava," Wan pleaded. "At least give me a chance to right the wrongs I've done."

The Light Spirit wavered. She had rarely seen a look of such determination in a human, and he seemed sincere and kind. She had witnessed him selflessly put himself in danger to save the people in this village from the dark Spirits' attacks, and it had not looked as if he had cared for a second that he ran risk of losing his life, which was usually the only thing humans cared about in the end. Was he so different from other humans she would trust him enough to help her defeat her eternal adversary? She knew Vaatu would only grow stronger in his freedom and she would surely lose the battle if she faced him all on her own. But was it worth spending time she could use to track down Vaatu on a small being whose existence was but a whimper compared to the length of her life? She had never known any other company but the Dark Spirit. She was the embodyment of everything good and peacefull in this world. Surely it could be worth it to allow the help of one of the creatures she had watched over since they first emerged. She couldn't afford to lose to Vaatu, so she would need every inch of support anyone was willing to give to her.

"Very well, then." she yielded. A hopefull light appeared in Wan's eyes.

– – –

_AN: and I'll end this chapter here. I typed alot more for it, but it was getting way too lenghty so I'll put the other half of this content in the next chapter, it should come up soon but I still need to finish it up and rewrite it a bit before it's publishable. It should be online by the end of the week, though. Thank you for reading and review if you can/want to. _


	9. A new gift

**Chapter 9: A new gift**

It was a few hours after the dark Spirit's attack on the village of the air people. Wan seemed to wander around a bit aimlessly, closely watched by Raava. He had started packing his things as soon as she had agreed to let him help her defeat Vaatu, and he was nearly finished. Around him, the villagers were busy cleaning up, helping each other restore destroyed buildings or tending to someone's wounds. Elder Fu's hut had been set up as some kind of a crisis center, and people continuesly walked in and out. Wan had been meaning to talk to the Elder before he left, but he hadn't had a chance yet. Or rather, he had been trying to avoid talking to anyone for as long as possible. For a reason he didn't understand, the air people didn't blame him for the destruction of their village. They were sad, beaten, yet ever hopefull and no one seemed to mind he wasn't helping them rebuild or anything. He wondered if it had something to do with Raava's presence, but the Spirit hadn't said much anymore. She just followed him from a distance. She didn't seem to get impatient or anything, she simply watched and waited. It got on Wan's nerves.

He finally decided he couldn't hang around much longer and entered Elder Fu's hut. He found the old man in the middle of the building, drinking tea and answering to anyone who came up to him. He was currently talking to a woman with her two children clinging to her arms. He kindly but decicively told them to leave as soon as he saw Wan approach.

"I take it you will leave soon." he said, pouring a second cup of tea as the younger man went to sit down beside him.

"There's something I'd like to ask before I go." Wan said. The Elder handed him the teacup and waited for him to speak his mind.

"Well, there's two things, actually..." Wan muttered, accepting the tea reluctantly, still feeling he didn't really deserve such kindness anymore. "Why isn't anyone here angry with me?" he said a bit louder, looking at the older man. Elder Fu took a sip of his tea before answering.

"You said yourself you got tricked by the Spirit of Darkness." he said. "He's a being of immense power that has lived for longer than any of us can imagine. It's not hard to understand he could easily fool a mortal human with little knowledge of the Spirits into doing what he wanted."

"But I do have knowledge of the Spirits," Wan said, admitting what had made him feel almost as bad about the destruction of the village: he had lived with the Spirits a long time, and he should have known better.

"Wan, " Elder Fu said in a calming tone, "I've lived close to the Spirits all my life. I'm turning 97 next spring and I can safely say there is much I still don't know about them. They are complex and versatile and you could spend lifetimes getting to know them and still be surprised by them every day."

Wan shrugged. He knew the Elder was right, but that didn't make him feel any better. A silence fell between them.

"Wasn't there something else you wanted to say?" Elder Fu asked after some time.

"There is," Wan answered. "Is it possible for me to got to the Lion Turtle and ask it to grant me the power of air?"

"Interesting." Elder Fu replied. "You want to wield two elements, then. I suppose that could give you an advantage against the Dark Spirit."

"Is it possible?" Wan insisted.

"I don't know," the Elder said. "Only the Lion Turtle can answer that question."

– – –

Wan left Elder Fu's hut with even more determination to correct the mistakes he made. The old man hadn't been able to answer all his questions, but he was feeling confident he could learn air, too. Raava, who had been waiting outside the hut saw the new spring in his step. She glided after him.

"I'm going to pick up my stuff at Hao's house, get Mula and then we'll go speak with the Lion Turtle." he said to her. She didn't answer and just followed him, giving no hint whatsoever she agreed with or dissaproved of anything he was doing. He figured it would be best to ignore her behavior for now. They could talk as soon as they were on their way.

He found his pack where he'd left it, in Hao's room. Hao was there too, and he was stuffing books and clothes in his trusted satchel.

"...What are you doing?" Wan asked after staring at his friend for a while.

"What does it look like?" Hao said, and he smiled. "I'm coming with you." Wan gawked at him in surprise, but then realized he should've seen this coming. Hao and him had been inseparable since the first day they'd met. It pained his heart when he realized he would have to leave his friend behind. Everything had been decided so fast he hadn't given any thought what going away really meant. He had been happy living with the air people, but he needed to go away if he wanted to set things right. He didn't want to put Hao in any danger. Not to mention his mother would be heartbroken. Wan didn't want to cause any more harm than he'd already done.

"You can't." he said and tried to ignore the upset look on Hao's face.

"Of course I can!" the teenager answered stubbornly. "No way you're going on this quest all on your own."

"I won't be all alone," Wan said, thinking of Raava. "And you can't just leave your family and your village behind." Hao sighed and didn't answer. He went to sit down and started pulling his things out of his bag, throwing them aside violently. Wan was taken aback by his friend's sudden mood swing. Hao was usually so joyfull and talkative, seeing him angry was shocking.

"I'm sorry." Wan muttered.

"I'm sorry too." Hao said, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched. He had stopped throwing stuff around and now struggled to fight back his tears.

"Goodbye." he heard Wan say, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Good luck." Hao mananged to answer, but he didn't look up to see his friend leave.

– – –

For the third time in his life, Wan looked into the eyes of a great Lion Turtle. Raava was on his left side and Mula on his right, just a bit behind him. Elder Fu stood a few yards further behind him. Wan had just finished explaining to the ancient animal why he was here. It didn't answer right away, blinking slowly and Wan felt infinitly small once again.

"You already carry the power of fire." it finally spoke. "No human has ever held two elements at the same time."

Wan's hopes of having a chance to learn a new element faltered.

"There must be a way." he said, sounding more confident than he felt. "I can learn how to do it." _I have to._

"Perhaps." the Lion Turtle said. "But Raava must hold the other element for you until you master it."

"Ancient one, why would I do that for one that has caused so much trouble?" the Light Spirit said. It was the first time she spoke again after showing up to save the air village and Wan heard in the tone of her voice she was still mad at him. He wondered if she would ever change her mind about him. He was only trying to set things right.

"Raava, please, this may be our only chance to defeat Vaatu." he said, turning to face her and trying to sound as genuine and humble as he could. She shifted slightly, as if unsure for a moment what she should decide.

"Maybe you're right." she said at long last. "We can try it." She moved forward to accept the gift of air from the Lion Turtle.

Wan felt the hope inside him grow again. If he could use both air and fire, he would be twice as powerfull as he was now and they would have a chance against the darkness.

He got on Mula's back and the animal seemed happy to finally be able to travel again. Wan had no idea if she understood the gravity of the situation, but Mula seemed as supportive as ever. He turned to face Elder Fu, but he didn't know what to say.

"May you go with the blessing of all the good of humans and Spirits." the Elder said, and he bowed. Wan felt a bit uncomfortable that he seemed believe in him so much. He would have to make sure his faith was justified.

"Thank you for everything." he said and bowed back. He urged Mula to turn around and he left the air people behind at last. As hopefull for the future as he dared to feel, a shadow fell over his heart when he realized he didn't know how much hope there was in the first place. He gazed to Raava, who was moving with him, but he didn't say anything.

As he was making his way down the hills, he suddenly heard a voice cry. He stopped Mula and looked behind him to see Hao run towards him. The teenager handed Wan a package when he reached him.

"Mom said she wanted you to have this." he said. Wan found a teapot and a matching cup inside the wrapping, with a spiral motive that reminded of air currents. It was a simple gift, but it meant more to him than he could discribe.

"Thanks so much." he said.

"If you're going to learn air," Hao said. "you need to learn to think like a leaf in the wind." He bowed to Wan and ran off again. He stopped on the hilltop and waved, a small figure in the distance. Wan waved back and then rode off into the Wilds.

He stopped for the night under a large rock with a small waterfall coming down the side. He was tired and hungry, since they hadn't stopped to rest or eat all day. The air people had given him a supply of dried fruit for along the way and he happily ate from it after making a small campfire. Raava had settled just outside of the lightcircle the fire made. She was glowing slightly and Wan thought he could hear a low humming noise come from her. She hadn't said a word all day and while Wan wanted to give her a chance of getting used to him, he didn't think anything could work out between them if they spent all their time not talking to each other. The problem was, he didn't have a clue what to say to her. There didn't seem to be any point in apoligizing, what had been done had been done, but if he wanted her to truly accept his help, he needed to get to know her better.

"So... Is there any place in particular we're heading towards?" he said at long last. He hadn't given much thought to what their destination could be, since he assumed Raava knew what needed to be done. She had been taking the lead all day, after all.

"I need to see how good you are with fire before you can start learning air." she replied matter-of-factly. "There is an active volcano just two days travel from here. I figured it would be a good place to practice."

"Sounds good." Wan nodded and he was glad to find the angry tone in Raava's voice had dissapeared. Silence fell between them again and he spent his time trying to think of something else to say. He gave up after about an hour and went to sleep. If the next days would be as exhausting as today, he would need his rest.

Raava watched him as he fell asleep. She still wasn't sure how she should feel about this human, who had caused her to be split from Vaatu for the first time in hundred thousands of years. It was so long ago she had attached herself to her eternal adversary she could only vageuly recollect how she had done it. The face of the earth had changed and the stars were different since then. She had struggled and eternity and it felt confusing to be free of Vaatu's weight. She was going to try and stop him from engulfing the world in darkness, she had no choice. It was the sole purpose of her exsistence, to battle darkness forever, just like the darkness battled the light forever, in an eternal contest for balance. Sometimes Raava had won; sometimes, Vaatu had won. It looked like it was his turn again. It was simply the way the universe worked, even if she would try everything she could to stop him. She didn't think she stood much of a chance this time.

Her only hope was the small creature now fast asleep by his campfire. He was the cause of her problems, but he seemed so keen to fix his mistake, she had accepted him by her side. He hadn't meant any harm, after all. Humans were so strange. Their ability to have such an impact on things seemed so disproportionate to how very short their time on this world was. She had lived and strived for an enternity and not much was essentially different. She had to accept her fate and do whatever she could. Yet, as she watched Wan sleep, she felt as though he represented changes she could not yet forsee. She wasn't sure if they would be for better or for worse.

The next day, they traveled further and Wan felt even more tired than before. He hadn't slept all that good, and he had been having disturbing dreams full of shadows. He had been lying awake for a few hours, too, thinking.

"Hey Raava," he said after stifling another yawn. She shifted ever so slightly and he knew she listened. "What's this harmonic thing Vaatu was talking about?"

"Harmonic Convergence." she corrected him, but she didn't sound condescending. "It happens once every ten thousand years. It is then that Vaatu and I battle for the fate of this world. If I win, things remain as they are. If Vaatu wins, darkness will come."

"Harmonic... Convergence." Wan repeated after her. "I've never heard of it."

"I didn't think you would have," Raava said. "The last one happened almost ten thousand years ago."

A look of worry appeared on Wan's face. "Almost?" he said. "How long do we have until the next one?"

"About a year on your time." the Light Spirit replied. She didn't sound worried at all. Wan realized it was an unavoidable event and it would happen no matter what he did. He also figured that the vague idea that had been on his mind since the night before wasn't as achievable as he'd hoped. He decided to discuss it with Raava anyway. They were going to work together so she would have to know what was on his mind.

"I've been thinking." he said. "I know there's many other Lion Turtles aside from the one I come from and the one we just left. My home Turtle gave the power of fire. The last one gave the power of air. There's two elements left: water and earth. So that must mean there's Lion Turtles that give the power to control water and earth." He looked to his right side to the Light Spirit. She didn't correct him so he assumed he was right.

"You want to learn to control all four elements." she said rather flatly. Wan nodded.

"If you could learn to do that," she said, doubting if it was even possible. "You would become more powerfull than you can even imagine."

"The more damage I can do, the better, right? Vaatu's getting stronger every day. I believe I need this power if we want to stand a chance."

Raava had to admit to herself she was amazed at the young man's suggestions. No human had ever learned two elements, let alone all four. The most astounding thing was probably that his only intention seemed to be to help her. He didn't want this power to rule or destroy. He wanted it because he wanted to do a good thing. She had never expected this from any human. He had just convinced her a bit more he was worth her time.

They arrived at the volcano the next day around noon. The sky was darkened by the smoke of the eruption and the closer they got to the fiery mountain, the blacker the ground became. They stopped at the bottom of a valley covered in ashes. Wan found the place desolate and unpleasant, but it did look like the best spot to practice his control over fire. He didn't waste any time and started doing his old exersices right away, under Raava's watchfull gaze. He did feel a bit nervous at first. It had been a while since he had truly practiced. He concentrated on his breathing, shifting through the stances of the dragon dance slowly at first, with smaller flames than usual, but it all came back to him after the first time and he moved more smoothly, his fire becoming bigger and hotter. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed doing this.

While he practiced, he started wondering what the Lion Turtle had meant with "Until you master the element". He had never heard of anyone ever 'mastering' an element, or it would have to be himself since he started training with the dragon. That had been nearly two years ago, and he was confident with his ability, but no to the point he could say he had mastered the element. He guessed he would need to train for a long time before he could say of himself he was truly a master of fire. The problem was, he didn't have time. Raava needed to face Vaatu at the Harmonic Convergence in a year, and since he would help her, he needed to be there too. He would have to trust he would be good enough by then and learn as much as he could. If he wanted to learn the other elements as well, he would have to go and find other Lion Turtles as soon as possible. He would have to learn air, water and earth in the meantime, and hope his knowledge of fire was enough.

He finsihed his round of exercises with one last high kick, sending a huge fireblast into the sky.

"Remarkable." he heard Raava say, and he turned to look at her.

"Thanks." he replied, a bit surprised. The Light Spirit didn't seem like the type to give complements. Then again, he didn't really know her at all. She did represent everything good and peacefull, so she had to be a nice Spirit in the end.

"Anyway, I believe I'm ready to try air." Wan said. "How is this going to work?"

"The only way for me to give you the other element is to pass through your body and combine our energies." Raava said.

Wan frowned and felt a litte unsure now. He had imagined she would conjur a bubble containing the air power and he would have to grab it or something. Now that he thought about it, that did seem silly and what she had just said made alot more sense. Then he remembered humans and Spirits usually didn't 'combine' very well.

"You've done something like this before, right?" he asked, half smiling but Raava seemed so serious he had a gut feeling there was a catch to it all and it wasn't going to be pleasant.

"No." she said. "As far as I know, this has never even been attempted. It's very dangerous."

Wan face fell a bit. He should've seen this coming. It had all seemed a little to easy. Get element, learn it, done. He guessed he didn't have a choice but to go through whatever was needed for him to be able to control another element.

"Let's try it." he said. "I survived being lost and sick in the Wilds, this can't be so bad." He started to brace himself for some kind of argument, but Raava didn't say anything and simply rose from the ground in an elegant movement, and the next second, she came racing towards him at full speed. He didn't even have time to blink before she reached him.

There was an explosion of light. Tidal waves of energy surged inside him and there was a deep, resonating hum that blocked out all other sound. He couldn't think, he couldn't even see. But he could feel, and what he felt was as if every bone in his body was being shattered into ten thousand pieces.

The pain stopped as sudden as it had started, but the memory of it didn't fade so quickly. Wan's senses returned to him, and he found himself on his knees, shivering. If he would have to go through this every time he wanted to learn another element... he put the thought aside. He would deal with it when the time was there. He got to his feet and noticed Raava had landed back on the same spot she had started from and she was looking at him. She couldn't express her feelings like he could since she didn't have visible eyes or a face, but he could swear she seemed concerned for him. He smiled and shrugged, wanting to show her he was perfectly fine. The pain he'd felt for the split second she had been inside him, was gone and it didn't feel like he got hurt in any way. Something had changed, though.

Fire had always felt like warmth inside him, like a small but bright flame that couldn't be extinguished and made him shine, giving him power over something that could be so volatile and destructive and yet so comforting and reassuring. Fire was life; it was the hearth to come home to and the sun that made things grow tall. Wan had learned this during his first day with the dragon.

The fire was gone, but he didn't feel empty. It had been replaced with something so different, he needed time to analize what he was feeling. Air was like having a light, fluttering breeze circle around inside, and it reminded him of butterflies, but also of storm clouds. If fire was life, air was freedom.

Wan took a hesitant step forward and thrusted his arm out, his hand open and his palm outward. A big gust of wind blew away from him, swirling up the ash from the ground. He tried it a second time, creating the same effect. He tried to think what the air people had told him about the element and remembered Hao's words: learn to think like a leaf in the wind. He realized air needed a different approach than fire. Fire required very controlled movements, it was an element that got out of hand quickly, it was in its nature. He wasn't sure yet what the nature of air was.

"Like leaves in the wind..." Wan muttered to himself. Leaves would twirl and dance, going where ever the breeze took them. He created another gust and tried to see what happened. Ashes flew up and settled down again. Wan frowned, he didn't think he was getting it.

"This seemed alot easier in my head." he said, not to anyone in particular. He was so focused he'd half forgotten he wasn't all alone anymore, and he was surprised when Raava answered.

"Air travels the path of least resistance." she said. "You've lived with the air people, you know what they're like. What did you learn from them?"

Wan thought back to the first day he'd met the air people.

"They can levitate off the ground using their air power." he said. "Hao told me he uses the air currents around him to do that. I guess I could try it myself."

He looked around and found large rock sticking out of the ground. It was tall enough so he could jump off it from pretty high up, but not that he would injure himself if something went wrong. He climbed it, hesitated just a second before jumping down and promptly landed on the ground before he could bend any air at all. He got up again and brushes the ashes of his clothes.

"This looked so much easier when Hao did it." he muttered, and climbed back up the rock.

Wan spent the rest of the day attempting to hover off the boulder. By the time the sun set, he was tired, dirty and sweaty, but he had the feeling he was getting so close, he didn't stop for the night just yet. The light faded, but he kept climbing up the rock and jumping down. He managed to let the wind blow around him, but he didn't get much further than blowing more ashes into his face. Raava had barely moved from her spot and she hadn't said anything anymore. She didn't want to disrupt his concentration and frankly, she didn't know more than he did on how to learn air. Spirits could carry the elements, but they couldn't use them.

Wan was getting more and more frustrated. He figured he was doing something wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He kept thinking that if he tried it one more time, he would surely understand why he couldn't hover, even if it seemed so simple. He climbed the rock for what felt like the hundred time. The skin of his palms was red and sour, his knees were bleeding a bit and his head started to hurt. He got to the top of the boulder and stopped for a moment, gazing down to the ground. It was getting so dark he couldn't see it clearly anymore. He sighed and dicided he would have to call it quits for today and hope things would be better in the morning. He kicked a pebble down, wavering a bit if he should jump one more time or not. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to picture leaves dancing in the breeze, free of doubt and worry, free of any pain or struggle, free of...

His eyes flew open. He had figured it out at last. He had been thinking about this too hard for too long. All he had been needing to do was let go. He stepped of the egde of the boulder and didn't think about anything anymore.

Wind blew all around him and lifted him up. Instead of the soft landing he'd been hoping to perform all day, he saw the ground get further and further away from him. Raava was just a glowy smudge far below him. He tried to remember to breathe and he felt the currents around him change direction. He tried to focus on getting down rather than higher and the currents changed again, now taking him back to earth. He somehow managed to land just infront of the boulder. He let out his breath slowly. The winds settled and he was feeling a bit dizzy. Then he noticed Raava gliding up to him.

"I finally got it." he told her, smiling. "I'm thinking like a leaf in the wind."

He twirled around and flew up again, even higher this time, the breeze following his movement. Raava heard him laugh and she couldn't help but be impressed.

– – –

_AN: I've tried putting some of the philosophy of the bending arts in this chapter and I hope it makes sense. I know I'm changing some of the dialogue from the original episodes, but it's just so it would fit better into my story. _

_Thank you for reading. Please review if you want to, I like the feedback it makes me happy to see people are enjoying what I do. See you in the next!_


	10. The wandering tribe

**Chapter 10: The wandering tribe**

"Don't go too far this time, Liu!"

"I'll be fine, dad!" Liu called over her shoulder. Her father and the other men and women of the tribe were at the mouth of the river, catching the salmon that swam up the stream this time of the year. They were using their control over water given by the Lion Turtle they lived on to hurl the fish out of the water. Roughly half of the tribe was busy fishing, while the rest of them took the fish away to scale them and store their meat away into large, airtight baskets. Everyone helped, even the children and elderly. The salmon migration was an important event for the tribe, they could live for months of the fish they caught, so it was vital that everybody did as much as they could.

Liu had worked hard all morning as a part of the first shift. Being in her late teens, it was expected of her to help as much as the grown ups, seeing as she was in the prime of her life. Nevertheless, her father had allowed her a short break over noontime. The tribe had been fishing from dusk till dawn for almost a week now and while the salmon migration would last for some time longer, the people had gathered what they needed and would head back to the Lion Turtle soon. They would continue catching and storing fish for the rest of the day, but they were taking it more slowly now. Everyone was tired and the catch had been exeptionally good this year.

Liu headed to the beach to gather seashells and to see if she could find mussels at the bottom of the cliffs that stood in the distance. She was glad she finally had some time alone. The salmon migration was the busiest time of the year for her tribe and while she enjoyed the event and she knew it helped fortify the bonds between the people, she did like to have some time for herself. It also gave her the opportunity to practice her control over water. She didn't like to do so in front of the others. They often gave her strange looks, as most of the members of the tribe found the power to control water only usefull for fishing or as a last resort to defend themselves against an angry Spirit. But the tribe was watched over by the good and powerfull Moon Spirit for generation, so as long as they didn't upset the Spirits on purpose, they were relatively safe.

Liu realized there was probably not much use in gaining skill in controlling water, but she did it anyway. It made her feel good and she had a talent for it. She was the only person in the tribe that had been able to catch a fish by using her ability the first time she tried it. She had only been eight years old. Ever since then, she tried to practice as much as she could. The tribe members dissaporved of it, but they let her have her fun, since she didn't do any harm with it.

She reached the cliffs, tall but eroding with many rocks at the bottom. The rocks formed a large pile at the far end of a small inlet, obscuring the beach at the other side. She saw there weren't as many mussel shells as she'd hoped. She gathered the ones she could find and put them in her bag. She put the bag on a rock by the cliff and headed to the water. She let the waves flow over her bare feet for a while and played a bit with the beads in the many thin braids in her hair. Then, she started to practice a series of movements she had come up with herself. They were slow and elegant and reminded of the flow of water around rocks in a riverbed. As she moved, a portion of water of the sea rose up and moved with her. She shaped the water into a sphere first, then let it flow around her, stretching it out longer and longer and then let if move back into a ball. She completely lost herself in the motion and she wasn't aware she wasn't all alone.

She heard a noise and she turned around quickly, startled. The water that had been bended almost all around her lost its shape and splashed down into the sand. Liu's eyes scanned the cliffside, the rocks at the bottom and the beach left and right, but everything seemed quiet, the only sound coming from the waves crashing behind her.

"Dad?" she tried. There came no response. Then, she heard that strange noise again. It sounded like a sharp blast of wind, but that didn't make any sense. It was always rather windy by the sea, but it was a sunny, warm day and the wind blew steady and calm. She heard it again and it sounded as though it came from behind the cliffs. There was a long stretch of beach there, but Liu had never been there often, since it was out of sight of the river, so she was a bit hesitant as she walked away from to water to peek behind the rocks. She heard the noise again and dispite all the warnings her family and tribe members had given her to leave Spirits to their bussiness since they could be angered quickly, she climbed over the boulders and down to the beach at the other end.

She saw a man on the beach, about fifty feet away, just as he was finishing some kind of spinning movement. He jumped and a wind started to blow, whipping Liu's hair and clothes, and the currents lifted the man off the ground, higher and higher, until he was at least thirty feet up in the air. The winds changed direction and the man came falling down, but his fall was slowed by the air blowing around him. Liu stared, dazzled, she couldn't quite grasp what she was seeing. Part of her wanted to crawl back over the rocks, go back to the river and her tribe, and forget all about what she had seen. Another part of her, a stronger part, wanted to know how a person was able to fly, because it definatly looked like the man was flying. A third part of her warned her that it all could be a trick of the Spirits to lure her away and get her lost forever. She had heard stories like that, people dissapearing into the mists or into the night, never to be seen again. But it was daytime and there was no mist. There was a man on the beach, not a Spirit.

Conflicted, she remained where she was.

The man did the trick with the winds again, and she observed him closely, gettig more and more convinced he was in fact a human being. He seemed to be about her age, with messy brown hair and a little beard, but he looked so different from anyone Liu knew. The people of her tribe were tanned by the sun and they were usually tall and built, with brown hair and blue or grey eyes. This man was pale and rather skinny, but he didn't look sick, and she thought she could hear him laughing as he flew even higher into the sky. She shaded her eyes with her hand and took a few steps closer. She froze on the spot when she saw he had noticed her and he waved as he hovered down. She could feel her heart speed up and started to regret coming to check out the strange noises. It could all still be some kind of trap, you never knew what Spirits were up to, she could be in danger and her tribe didn't know she was all the way out here, they wouldn't hear her if she called for help, she was...

"Hello there!"

The man had crossed the distance between where he had landed and where Liu stood while she was trying to figure out if she should run away, stay where she was or even try to fight if it came down to it. He smiled widely at her, the sunlight sparking tiny specks of amber in his brown eyes and he looked about as harmless as a baby turtle duck. Liu blinked a few times and she heard herself say hello, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat, feeling a bit embarassed. Then, she heard voices coming from behind her, and they were calling her name. Had she been away for that long already?

"...I need to go." she blurted out and scurried back to the rocks, ignoring the confused look on the young man's face and his calling for her to wait. She climbed back over the rocks and when she got down, she saw her father and her older sister Lini by the cliff. She ran to them as fast as she could.

"What happened?" Lini asked as Liu flew into her arms.

"I... There's a..." Liu pointed behind her to the boulders she just climbed over, but the young man was nowhere to be seen.

"I told you not to go too far, girl." her father said, but he sounded more worried than angry.

"Were you bothered by a Spirit?" Lini asked, putting her hands on her sister's shoulders and taking a close look at her face. Liu looked somewhat confused, but not scared or that she got hurt in any way.

"I saw a man flying." she said and Lini and her father exchanged a look.

"People don't fly." her father said.

"I know, I know." Liu sighed. "It was probably a trick or an illusion." She kept looking at the rocks, though, half hoping the man she saw would show up, but there was no sign of him and she started to feel stupid for thinking what she had seen was real.

"Let's go back to the tribe." Lini said at long last, putting an arm around her little sister's shoulders and gently pulling her away.

"You girls go." their father said. "I'll have a look around."

"But, dad..." Lini started, but he firmly shook his head.

"I'll be fine. I just want to make sure there's no direct threat for the tribe."

The sisters nodded and headed back to the river, while their father went to take a look behind the rock pile. He recognized Liu's footprints in the wet sand, but there were another set of prints that belonged to someone else entirely. He knew it couldn't be anyone from the tribe, they were all back at the river. He examined the prints closely and followed them further down the beach. He noticed odd patterns in the sand, as if someone or something had tried to draw circles and spirals. He inhaled sharply when he looked up from the patterns and saw three figures stand by the sea in the distance. One of them was without any doubt a Spirit. He went to lay down in the sand, observing the figures closely, trying to determine if they potentially posed a threat to the tribe. They seemed to be heading his way.

– – –

Wan had started to chase after the strange, blue-eyed girl that seemed to have shown up out of nowhere, but he stopped at the bottom of the pile of boulders she was now climbing up. He didn't want to scare her, as she had seemed taken aback by him in the first place, dispite him trying to be as friendly and non-threatening as possible. But she had talked back, which was a huge step compared to a previous encounter he had been almost three weeks ago now. He had stumbled across some people that had been hunting in the woods not far from their Lion Turtle. They too had the power of fire, but they had turned very agressive very quickly and Wan was lucky he had been able to defend himself using his air power. He had not tried to find the hunters back and had moved on and had reached the ocean soon after. He had been traveling north since then, following the coastline. According to Raava, there was a Lion Turtle close by and it turned out she was right. Since they were so close to more water than he had ever imagined exsisted, Wan was pretty positive he would have a chance to learn a new element soon.

He practiced air as much as he could and he was gradually getting better. Creating gusts of wind from his hands was the easy part, but he still struggled with flying. The air people had been able to launch themselves and then use wind currents to move to where ever they wanted, but Wan seemed to be stuck on just hovering and making soft landings. He wanted to master flying as soon as possible. He figured it would give him a huge advantage when he would have to face Vaatu, since the Spirit could fly himself, he would have to make sure he could keep up. So he practiced whenever he had the chance.

He remained by the rocks and listened for some time. He was sure he heard more people talking and decided to go get Raava and Mula. He had to run quite a distance back to the campsite on the beach. He usually drifted off pretty far whenever he used his air power to try to fly. It was a problem he was still working on, but at least he didn't get lost anymore.

"I found more people!" he called out to Raava as he approached where she and Mula had been watching him practice.

"Good." the Light Spirit responded as Wan started to gather his things and throw them in his pack. It had been some time since she had seen him this enthousiastic. His confidence had suffered quite the blow when the hunters had attacked them a few weeks ago and it had taken him a few days to get his upbeat attitude back, but after that, he had been as positive as ever. Raava often wondered how he stayed so hopefull. While she was the embodiment of all good and hopefull things, she didn't believe in their chances as much as Wan seemed to do. Then again, maybe he was just trying to show her that dispite the terrible thing he had done, he was capable of doing so much good as well. At the start of their journey, she had thought he didn't grasp how grave his mistake was, but now she realized that maybe he thought he couldn't afford to be realistic about the current situation the world was in. She admired that, even if it was foolish, but she didn't have the heart to bring his spirits down. And his progress with the elements was going so well, she almost dared to think they stood a chance.

Wan strapped his pack to Mula's back and led her and Raava to the cliffs further ahead. It was quite the undertaking to get Mula over the rocks, even if they passed through the lowest part closest to the sea. The catdeer was adaptable and clever, but she wasn't made for climbing and on top of that, she didn't like to be so close to so much water. Wan didn't want to leave her behind, and he thought of taking a detour back to where the cliffs were lower, to see if there was another way to the beach at the other end, but he had no idea how long that was going to take and if there actually was a way around. So he patiently guided Mula over the rocks as best as he could.

"You can't go any further." a deep and firm voice spoke. Wan looked up in surpirse just as he set foot on the sands, with Raava just behind him, while Mula moved away from the water towards the cliffside. There was a man on the beach, barefooted and dressed in a long sleeveless shirt, with a leather belt around his waist and loose pants underneath, in blue and grey hues. His hair was about shoulder length and decorated with a few dreadlocks with beads woven in them. His skin was tanned and his eyes were blue and Wan realized he was of the same people the girl he'd seen before was from. He had a stern look on his face and he stood defensively, legs wide and his right hand extended with the palm facing outward. Wan was taken aback for a moment. Obviously this man thought he was dangerous. He slowly raised his hands up to his shoulders, to show he was unarmed and didn't man any harm.

"Uh... Hello..." he tried, but the man's scowl deepened.

"Go back." he said and made his hand into a fist. Mula made a hissing noise and Wan moved to her to try to calm her down, while trying to keep an eye on the man. He looked like he only tried to protect himself and presumably the girl that had appeared before, even if she was nowhere around anymore. Wan realized that befriending people didn't work out as good as he hoped since he traveled with a large animal and a Spirit. He realized that probably most humans feared or at least mistrusted the Spirits, and the air people he'd met before were an exeption in that they lived happily alongside them. Wan just had to hope he could convince this man he didn't pose a threat. He patted Mula on the back in an attempt to calm her down. He saw the man's eyes shift from him to Raava, who hadn't moved or said a word.

"Don't worry," Wan said. "We don't mean any harm." He took a step forward, but would soon regret that. The man suddenly attacked. Wan held his arms over his head reflectively, but the man didn't even touch him. He made a fluid motion and without warning, a large wave rose up from the sea, splashed over the beach and knocked Wan of his feet. The wave rolled back and he struggled to catch his breath. Raava had flown up just in time and hovered above him. Mula had made it to the cliffs and she hadn't suffered the full blow of the wave. Wan rubbed the water out his eyes and saw the man run down the beach towards the river in the distance. The riverbanks were filled with people and when he looked even further, he saw an island in the water just off the coast, but it had a large bump sticking out from one side that looked alot like it could be the head of the largest kind of animal in exsistence. He had found another Lion Turtle and the humans that lived on it could control water. The bad news was that he would probably have a hard time befriending these people. He sighed and got up, sqeezing water out of his clothes as best as he could.

"That could've been worse" he said to Raava as she landed beside him.

"Positive as always." she replied dryly. Wan smiled dipsite her tone. He knew she was trying to change her view on humans since they started traveling together. Then again, it was pretty safe to say that, aside from him and the air people, there were very few humans or Spirits for that matter, that tried to coexist with each other. The encounter with the hunters some time ago prove that, and while the man they just met hadn't been that agressive, he had attacked them even if he was probably just trying to defend his people. Wan wasn't entirely sure what to do. He wanted to get to know these people and learn a new element, but it would be hard to convince them to trust a total stranger who traveled with a Spirit.

"I have an idea." he said. "You and Mula can stay here while I try to see if those people are any friendlier if I'm all alone."

"Be carefull." Raava said. Wan was probably right in that she had been the reason why the man on the beach had attacked them. Humans often didn't know any better than to fear what they didn't know.

"I'll be fine." Wan said and he walked down to the river after instructing Mula to stay. The catdeer made a noise that almost sounded as if she was worried, but she layed down in the sand nontheless. Raava watched him go until Wan was just a small figure in the distance.

– – –

Liu saw her father running back to the river. He had a serious look on his face and as soon as he reached the tribe, he started looking for Kurik. Chief Kurik was the leader of the tribe and a wise and noble man. Liu had been busy helping Lini store fish away, but she followed after her father to hear what he had seen and what he wanted to do.

"Chief!"

Kurik had been counting baskets again, even if he was sure the tribe would have more than enough for months to come. He looked up to see Jokata come up to him. The man looked worried.

"What's the matter?"

"Trouble, I think." Jokata said. He started to explain what he had encountered on the beach by the cliffs. Liu stood by and listened, with a confused look on her face.

"I didn't see a Spirit," she interrupted suddenly. Her father seemed surprised she was there.

"Liu," he said. "I saw you got scared and I wanted to find out why. Now I find that there's a Spirit too close for comfort." He turned to look at Chief Kurik again. "I think we need to leave as soon as we can."

"I wasn't scared." Liu protested, but the Chief seemed to believe her father's and started to call orders to gather up and go back to the Lion Turtle. The situation reminded him too much of that time the tribe had been disturbed by angry Spirits a few years ago and that hadn't ended well. Kurik was Chief and it was his duty to make sure the tribe was safe.

"Go to your sister." Jokata said to Liu and the young woman stomped of angrily.

Dispite the large number of people and a significant amount of things that needed to be packed, the tribe was well prepared in case of threats like these. Everyone knew what to do and they were organized and ready in a very short time. Chief Kurik led everyone back to the boats that lay on the shore near the river's mouth. The tribe had lived by the ocean for as long as anyone could remember and they were excellent boat builders. The boats were in fact large canoes, since they had to transport their baskets on them as well, and there were propelled by six men with long paddles. The last boats were shoved off the shore and the last tribe members got on board. Aside from many footprints, the people had left no trace of their visit to the river whatsoever.

Wan watched the people leave for their Lion Turtle, standing halfway on the beach between the cliffs and the river. He had started to run a bit when he saw them pack up, but the sand had slowed him down and he wouldn't have caught up with them anyway. He had no idea what he would have done if he would've reached the river in time. But he wasn't going to give up so easily. Those people couldn't stay on the Lion Turtle forever. Or so he hoped. He walked back to set up camp by the cliffs and spent the rest of the day attempting to catch a fish from the river.

It was night and the waxing moon rose and threw pearly lights on the waves as they crashed onto the shore in a neverending push and pull. Wan listened to the slow rhythm, while resting his back against a rock at the bottom of the cliff. He stared into the flames of a small campfire and hummed a rather monotone song that had been stuck in his head the whole day. It seemed to come from a distant memory, although he couldn't recall when he'd first heard it or who had been the singer. He was sure the song had words to it, but he couldn't remember them correctly. It had something to do with the sun, though... _Sun is shining bright today, your eyes they shine so bright this day... _Something along those lines. He poked his fire up a bit with a long stick and hummed the tune again, but the words didn't come back to him. Mula lay to his right and she opened one eye to look at him when he moved, making a low noise in her throat. She closed her eye again as soon as she was sure nothing was wrong.

Raava had settled to his left, a bit behind him. Wan was getting used to her usual silence, but he still tried to think of things to talk about. They had been traveling together for over a month now and there was trust between them, although it was still a bit hesitant. Wan could never guess what the Spirit was thinking and he usually let her be, but there were times he wondered if she would ever warm up to him a bit. If she didn't, he wouldn't blame her. After all, it was probably difficult for her to stay with the one person that had caused all her trouble in the first place. But he was trying so hard to fix his mistake. He had managed to stay hopefull so far, for his own sake mostly. He tried not to think too much about the reason why he traveled and his final desination. Frankly, he was scared, terrified even. He believed that as long as he stayed positive, something good would come of it and he would face whatever his destiny threw at him when the time was there.

Yet, his dreams were often haunted by a kite shaped shadow and although it was hard to spot, Wan could tell Raava was shrinking steadily. But she still towered over him and they hadn't encountered any other dark Spirits so far. He was worried, but he took life one day at a time, he practiced as much as he could and tried not to think of what would happen in less than a year. He still had time. He was exellent with fire, he was getting better with air every day and he would soon learn water and be able to move on to learn earth. He still had plenty of time. Everything would be fine. They stood a chance.

He tried to convince himself things would turn out alright every night before he went to sleep. This night, though, he had different things in his mind, most of them having to do with the humans he'd met today. Gazing to his right, he could see vaguely see a large, dark shape in the distance. He thought he could see tiny lights shine, as if the people were all gathered around campfires of their own, looking at the stars and telling stories. He hadn't been wandering in the wilderness for that long since he left the air people, but he missed human contact more than ever. Tomorrow, he would have to try to find a way to the Lion Turtle in the sea, even if he had to hover all the way across the water. That somehow seemed doable, if he ignored the fact he couldn't swim in case he fell into the sea. He sighed and poked up his fire a bit more, sending a thousand sparks flying.

"What's the matter?" Raava asked and Wan looked over his shoulder to her in surprise. As far as he could recall, this was the first time she had said something to him without him having asked or said anything before. She didn't seem worried or anything, just... curious. He shrugged.

"I'm just thinking of the people I saw today." he said. "I hope they'll come back tomorrow or the day after."

"It's like you said." she replied. "They'll have to come back sooner or later."

"That's right." Wan nodded. The silence fell between them again, but it felt less awkward than before.

After he made sure the campfire wouldn't go out or grow too large, he curled up in his blanket for the night. He didn't fall asleep soon, though. He was exited and even a bit anxious about the next day. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to find the water people back and get to know them. He was sure he'd find a way. As he slowly drifted off to sleep at last, he caught himself thinking of the girl on the beach, and how cute she had looked with all those little braids in her hair, and how her eyes had shone like jewels.

Wan had stared at the sky for what seemed like hours. The stars slowly faded and the daylight gradually grew stronger. He hadn't slept all that good, but it was finally morning and he felt more ready than ever to start the day. He was hungry, which wasn't so unusual, but he didn't really feel like eating, which was very unusual. He always ate whenever he had the chance. But if he had to look for food, he would waste time he could use to try to contact the people on the Lion Turtle. He fidgeted with his feet and turned over and back again in his blanket, silently scolding the sun for rising so slow. At last, he couldn't take it anymore. He threw his blanket off him and got to his feet. He stretched a bit, letting his gaze wander over the beach, but aside from a flock of seagulls, it was empty. He looked again. Something wasn't right. He blinked a few times and walked closer to the water. Then, it hit him.

The Lion Turtle was gone.

Panicking slightly, Wan ran further up the beach. He wasn't imagining things. The Turtle had dissapeared completely. No, he thought. This is impossible. But he realized it was perfectly possible. A Lion Turtle was a living being that breathed and moved, so it wasn't unlikely it had swam away overnight. Wan stared into the sea, he didn't want to believe what he was seeing. His chances of meeting new people and learning another element were gone. He slowly shook his head, rubbing his hands in his hair. What was he going to do now? Suddenly, all his anxiety and frustration reached a critical point and he let it all out in a single large burst of flames. The seagulls flew up in alarm, calling loudly. Wan took a few deep breaths and went to sit down in the sand, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He felt absolutely miserable.

He had no idea for how long he sat there. After a while, he felt something wet touch his neck, but he pushed Mula away from him. He wanted to be left alone. Some time later, something soft and warm touched his arm and he looked up to see Raava.

"Stand up." she said. "I've had a look around and I saw the Lion Turtle headed south. It's still visible on the horizon. If we leave now, we can catch up with it."

Wan sighed and felt an immense tension leave him. "That's great." he said, as he got to his feet. "That's amazing, even. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Dispite her flat tone, Wan could tell she was happy she had been able to help him. He couldn't help but smile when he realized their partnership seemed to be turning into something more.

A few minutes later, Wan had packed up and got on Mula's back. Things were looking up again. He still hadn't eaten anything, but his exitement had returned and fuelled him for the time being. He could eat once he found the Lion Turtle. The fact a whole civilization lived on the back of a wandering Turtle made him even more curious. He was pretty sure he was in for a whole new adventure. The sun shone bright and the wind played with his clothes and hair as he rode south, with Raava by his side.

– – –

_AN: that took me long enough! Sorry for taking so long to update. I'm pretty busy and this chapter didn't exactly write itself. I'm glad I got to introduce some new characters and a set up for the next few chapters. We got to see so little of Wan's journey and how he learned the elements, there's so much I could do with that gap that I initially wasn't sure what to do at all. _

_Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading and I'll try my best to update sooner, but, you know, life gets in the way sometimes, right?_


	11. Chances

**Chapter 11: Chances**

Wan followed the Lion Turtle for almost a week. Luckily, the great animal didn't swim away very far from the coastline. It always remained in sight, and while it didn't move very fast, it was a heavy task to keep up with it. Wan didn't dare to sleep for longer than a few hours and he didn't have much time to find food. When the Lion Turtle finally slowed down and seemed to look for a place to settle for a while, Wan was completely exhausted. Nevertheless, he waited another day to make sure the animal didn't drift off again suddenly.

The Lion Turtle swam into a wide, shallow bay with a rocky shore on the edge of a deep forest that reminded alot of the wilds outside Wan's home Turtle. A small river cut the shore in two, its water running wild from the woods, but calming down and growing wider towards the sea. A small group of the tribe visited the shore around noon, seemingly to make sure everything was safe before the rest of the people would follow. Wan hid in the woods and watched them from behind the trees. It was a good sign that the people left the Turtle, it looked like they were going to stay for a while. It seemed unlikely they commanded the Turtle when to leave and when to stop, but just in case, he decided to stay out of sight for the time being. He didn't want to have to chase the Turtle for so long again with little rest and food.

Wan followed the river uphill into the forest, until he came by a small pond halfway a series of waterfalls. Looking back, he could just make out the shoreline and the shape of the great Lion Turtle, so it was perfect to keep an eye out and remain unseen for some time. Around the pond, there were bushes and some trees that grew fruits, so he didn't have to worry about finding food anymore. The place was peacefull and quiet and it seemed perfect to stay for a while. He refilled his water pouch, picked as much fruit as he could carry and walked back down to the beach. Dispite his weariness, he wanted to see what the water people were up to now that they had left the Turtle again. He instructed Mula to stay by the pond and asked Raava to remain there, too. He wanted to contact these people alone at first, to make sure he didn't scare them away like he had last time. He didn't know Raava followed him from a distance, watching him from high in the treetops.

Wan climbed up a tree that stood by the river just at the edge of the forest. He had a good view on the beach, but no one would be able to see him. He saw a group of people gathered at the Lion Turtle's head in the shallows, to recieve the power of water. There weren't as many as he'd seen a week ago, so he guessed the larger part of these people stayed behind on the Turtle. He was close enough to see the homes they lived in on the great shell of the animal. He saw the boats these people used hang from the edge of the shell, but now, the water was too shallow for boats so the people had gotten off the Turtle using rope ladders. Wan thought he recognized the man he'd seen by the cliffs, and one of the two women standing close to him was definatly the girl he'd met first. Maybe he would have a chance to talk to her if she moved away from her people again, even if it was just for a little while.

The people formed smaller groups of three or four and spread out across the beach. Their task appeared to be to secure the shore for when the rest would follow. Coincidently, the man and the two women walked up the river to the wood's edge. As they drew closer, Wan could see they resembled each other so closely, they had to be related, the man obviously being the father and the women being his daughters. The father and the oldest daughter turned back after they had inspected the river, but the youngest walked just a bit closer to the forest, until she was just under the tree Wan sat in. She was so close he could hear her humming a tune that seemed familiar somehow. He leaned closer to listen, but the older woman called for her.

"Come on, Liu! There'll be plenty of time to hang around later!"

The girl pouted a bit, but she turned around too and followed her family. The people gathered together again and they went back to the Lion Turtle. Wan remained in the tree until the sun started to set, but the people didn't come back that day. Tired and hungry, he climbed down from the tree and made his way back to the pond again. When he got there, Mula happily sniffed his clothes and hair and he patted her back.

"Looks like we'll be staying here for at least a little while, girl." he said to her and scratched behind her ears. He took his blanket from his pack and went to lay down to sleep, so tired he didn't even make a campfire.

"Did you find out anything else?" Raava asked just as he was about to close his eyes. He looked up to see she aparently hadn't moved from the same spot all day.

"No, not really." he answered. "There's another day tomorrow. I'll catch up on my sleep first..."

He turned around and dozed off. He dreamt he was walking on water, while the girl he'd met walked beside him, as she was humming a song he was sure he'd heard before. For the first time since long, the shadow that was all too present in his dreams, stayed in the background.

Three days passed and Wan spent most of the time up in the tree by the beach, watching the water people go about their bussiness. They fished for shrimp that appeared to live in the bay in large numbers. The fishing happened in a specific way: the people worked in pairs, using their control over water to create large blobs containing the shrimp. They moved the water to tightly woven nets held by four others, to sift the shrimp from the water. The people holding the nets then tightened them together and stored the catch in large baskets that looked like the ones they had used to store the salmon in. It looked like hard work, but Wan could often hear laughter.

There was a group that went into the woods to gather fruit, but they never went far past the first trees and they remained close to the river. To Wan's dissapointment, the girl he wanted to talk to didn't go with them. She was usually busy on the beach helping to catch the shrimp. She hadn't gone anywhere on her own anymore and he started to think he would have to try to find someone else he could contact, even if his best chances were with her, since she had seen him before. He had to be carefull the fruit gatherers didn't spot him, so he couldn't really do much else but sit in his tree and hope something might happen. He had concidered just going to the Lion Turtle and ask for the power of water, but that meant he would have to go after sunset, when the water people left the beach. He didn't think it was a good idea to disturb a Lion Turtle in the dead of night. On top of it all, he had no idea for how long the Turtle was going to stay here, so he would have to make a move soon, or have to follow it again for who knew how long. Whenever he made it back to his camp by the pond, Raava asked him if he had gotten anywhere in contacting the water people. He told her every time he was sure something would happen the next day. She then let the subject rest, but he could tell she was growing impatient. But he couldn't figure out what the best thing to do was aside from waiting for the right moment, if it was ever going to come to pass in the first place.

On the fourth day, Wan was making his way down the river once more when he heard voices heading his way. He quickly hid in the bushes, just as three of the water people passed by. Peeking through the leaves, he saw a young man with a ponytail and a bit of a sneer on his face, followed by a girl about the same age with her hair in a braid over her shoulder and lastly – his heart sped up a bit – the girl he had been hoping to talk to again. She walked a bit at the back of the group and she didn't look to be having as much fun as her two friends. The girl with the braid took the young man's hand and giggled a bit as they walked further.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Dako?" she said, sounding slightly worried. "What if we run into a Spirit or something?"

"It'll be fine, Kati." Dako answered, grinning. "Besides, we got Liu with us. She's the best with water. We can handle ourselves."

The trio trailed away and Wan decided to follow them. Three people about his age, off on some kind of and adventure into the forest? That looked like the opportunity he'd been waiting for. But just to be sure, he kept his distance and remained hidden in the bushes. They were heading for his camp and he didn't want them to disturb Mula and seeing Raava would probably scare them away, even if she didn't mean any harm.

They went deeper into the woods and Wan was getting a bit worried since it didn't look like they would stop anytime soon. He almost choked when they reached the pond much sooner than he'd expected. Having to hide in the bushes had made him miscalculate how far off they had been. But there was no trace of Mula or Raava and Wan figured the Light Spirit must've heard the humans coming (they were pretty noisy) and had made sure they were out of sight. But it looked like she hadn't had the time to cover up obvious signs he'd been camping there, like his footprints and the remains of his campfire.

"Look at this!" he heard Dako cry out. Kati gasped and clung to his arm.

"I knew it! Spirits!" she squealed.

"Spirits don't make campfires." Liu said calmly.

"No one's been up here from the tribe." Dako said. "I don't like this. We should go back." Kati tugged his arm frantically and they started to move away.

"Come on, Liu!"

"I'll just make sure everyhting's safe." she called over her shoulder as her two friends were making their way downhill.

"Don't stay away for too long!" Dako called and he and Kati ran off to the beach.

Liu remained by the pond and Wan watched her from behind a bush, trying to be as silent as possible. There were at least a hundred ways he could mess this up now. She turned her head from left to right, as if she was listening for something. Wan shifted ever so slightly to keep his balance. Without warning, Liu let water rise up from the pond and splash down on the bush and on Wan. He yelped and fell over, rubbing the water out of his eyes. He heard another rush of water coming and reflectively held his arms over his head, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes and saw the girl stand there while she held up a large sphere of water over her head, ready to strike. She looked surprised, but also a bit curious rather than scared or angry. She lowered her arms and let the water flow back into the pond. Wan got to his feet and they stared at each other for a while, unsure what to do or say. It was the girl that broke the silence.

"I saw you at the beach." she said. "You know, last week." Wan nodded.

"I remember." he said.

"You were _flying_." she said breathlessly, her eyes widening a bit.

"Oh, that." Wan shrugged. "It's not really flying. I bend the air currents around me to hover. I'm not really good at it."

"You... what?" she asked, confused.

"It's alot like what you do with water." he explained. "Only I do it with air instead."

Her eyes widened a bit more, but she nodded in understanding.

"Amazing." she said. "I had no idea this was possible. You're like something out of a story or legend... Where did you learn this?"

"From another Lion Turtle." Wan answered and he started to tell her how he got here, but for some reason he left out the part about his power over fire and the part about Raava and Vaatu. He was finally talking to another person again and he didn't want to scare her away.

"Are you all by yourself?" Liu asked when he finished his story.

"No, there's also Mula, my pet catdeer. I usually ride on her back while traveling. She's nowhere around, though, I guess you scared her away." he said.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." she apoligized.

"It's alright." Wan said. " She can't be too far."

"You should come with me and I'll introduce you to the tribe." Liu said enthousiastically. "I'm sure they won't see you as a thread when I explain, even if you look a little wierd."

"I don't look that weird." Wan said in confusion, but she laughed and he couldn't help but laugh too.

"By the way, my name is Liu." she said, still smiling.

"I know. I mean, I sort of overheard you and your friends talking just now..." Liu raised an eyebrow and he felt heat rush to his cheeks. "Uh, anyway, my name is Wan. Nice to meet you. I mean, I know we've met on the beach before, that was nice too, but... you know..." he trailed of and shrugged a bit awkwardly. Liu laughed again but she wasn't making fun of him.

"Come with me." she said, extending a hand. Wan hesitated, but took her hand and she pulled him away from the pond and they ran to the beach. Her hand was soft and warm, and the beads in the many braids clicked as she hopped down the path by the river. Wan felt slightly guilty for leaving Mula behind and not telling Raava anything, but Liu looked over her shoulder to him and her sky blue eyes met his, and he could ignore his guilt for the time being.

They emerged from the woods just as Liu's sister Lini approached, slightly worried after Dako and Kati had told her what they had found by the pond. Her jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide when she saw her little sister come out of the forest with a complete stranger following her.

"What in the Moon Spirit's name is going on here?" she exclaimed, giving Liu a look that usually meant trouble. Liu's happy expression faltered just a little.

"It's okay," she said. "Lini, this is Wan. He's the flying man I saw last week. Wan, this is my older sister Lini."

Wan smiled at Lini, but she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a scrutinizing look. He opened his mouth to say something, but she turned her attention back to Liu, ignoring him just as easily as ignoring a stain on the sole of her shoe.

"Dad's not going to like this." she said.

"He's totally harmless." Liu argued, crossing her arms over he chest too, and if it weren't for the obvious age and height difference, the sisters looked like they could be twins. Then, they started yelling at each other. Wan stood by awkwardly, but he knew better than to come between two argueing women.

"Fine! Fine," Lini shouted after a while, just as Liu was opening her mouth again to yell something. "Let's go talk to dad and to Chief Kurik, alright?" She let her gaze go over Wan again, but she looked a little less mistrusting than before. Then, she turned around and firmly walked towards the people by the sea. Liu gave Wan an apologetic look and took his hand again, following Lini down the beach.

The tribe had gathered around Lini, her father and Chief Kurik when Liu and Wan approached. Most of the people had worried and confused looks on their faces, and some looked downright scared. Wan hadn't been expecting a warm welcome like he'd recieved from the air people, but the stares made him uncomfortable and he had no idea what he could do to calm the tension. Liu let go of his hand and whispered to him to stay where he was, and she made her way up to where her family and the leader of the tribe were having a quiet but heated discussion. Lini still had her arms over her chest, while her father pointed at Wan angrily and Liu was making frantic gestures. The chief of the tribe, a middle aged man with grey streaks in his hair, looked completely calm. He listened closely, but his gaze wandered to the stranger on the beach from time to time, although he didn't seem upset at all. Some other members of the tribe tried to interfere with the argument, but the chief raised a hand and everyone went quiet. He walked towards Wan, looking calm but not friendly.

"Stranger from another Lion Turtle, or so Liu claims you are." he said and Wan simply nodded, unsure what to say. Chief Kurik didn't look like he would resort to violence quickly, but Wan could tell he was the kind of person you didn't want against you if he was pushed too far.

"You don't look like a threat," Kurik said, and Wan felt slightly better, but the chief's expression hardened. "Jokata tells me he saw you in the precence of a Spirit. I don't know what that means, but I do know my people wish to stay away from the bussiness of the Spirits, for our own sake. I suggest you leave us in peace."

"I..." Wan took a few deep breaths, but he didn't say anything. He didn't know what he could say.

Chief Kurik turned around and walked back to his tribe. He told them to go on with their work and to leave the stranger alone. The group of people broke apart and everyone went back to whatever they had been doing before. They ignored Wan so well it felt as if he didn't exist to them. He hadn't moved from where he stood, stubbornly clenching his fists. He saw Liu stand by the shoreline, her eyes downcast. She was trying so hard not to look at him she could as well have been screaming and pointing. Lini took her arm and pulled her away. Liu did look up now and their eyes met for a split second, but she turned her head away and followed her sister, her shoulders hanging.

Wan turned around and made his way back to the forest, with a determined expression on his face. He had not come this far to quit now. He was never going to quit. But had no idea how to come by the power of water now.

He made it back to his camp to find Mula had returned safely, and Raava was back too, sitting calmly by the pond.

"Your expression tells me your contact with the people didn't go so well." she said. Wan threw his hands up in the air angrily, but he didn't say a word. He went to sit by the pond, next to Raava, and stared into the water. The Light Spirit slowly shifted her bands a bit, unsure what to do or say. Wan was usually in a good mood, and she had grown so used to that it was strange to see him this way. But she had expected their journey wouldn't go without any trouble. So it seemed Wan had been too optimistic so far. She hoped he had learned a lesson. She had seen him go to the beach and had heard the words of the tribe's leader. He wasn't wrong to mistrust anything having to do with Spirits. Yet, she couldn't help but feel slightly upset when she looked to Wan's hunched form by the pond. But she wasn't sure how she could help.

She was snapped out of her train of thought when Wan suddenly stood up.

"I'm going back." he said. "I'll just go straight to the Lion Turtle and ask for the water." Without saying another word, he started to run down the path by the river. Raava followed close after him. He seemed to be in a strange mood now, and she feared he might do something reckless. She wasn't sure what the people would do if he returned, in her presence no less, but she was going to look after him. He was doing this to help her, after all.

Liu looked up from the basket she was busy fixing when she heard distressed voices. The people of the tribe moved, seemingly to get out of the way of something. She stood up and saw Wan walk across the beach to the Lion Turtle, a resolute look on his face. He was followed by a white and blue shape hovering a short distance behind him. She dropped the basket out of her hands and ran towards him, but she wasn't sure why. The only thing she was sure of was that she didn't want anything bad happening to him, and she didn't care about the Spirit following him.

Chief Kurik had seen the stranger's return as well, and he now realized he'd probably made a mistake by letting the young man go free. He rushed forward as the stranger reached the shoreline in front of the Lion Turtle.

Wan stepped into the water, not caring his shoes got wet. No one had tried to stop him so far, but he figured the people would soon get over their surpirse and try to attack him. He had to be quick if he wanted to get the attention of the Lion Turtle. He hoped the people would back off as soon as the Turtle was awake. He heard a rushing noise and looked to his left to see the leader of the tribe run through the water towards him, as he made a fluid motion with his arms. A large wave rose up from the sea and Wan didn't have the time to get out of the way. The wave crashed down and threatened to throw him out of balance, but he managed to stand his ground. He wiped to water of his face just in time to see the chief send another wave his way. Instinctively, he started to create a defense with whatever element Raava had left him with. It was fire, since he last used it to make a campfire. His blast was huge and the heat of it made steam waft from the water that splashed around him. He heard screaming come from behind him. When the steam cleared a bit, he saw most of the people were running to the edge of the forest, but the chief still stood to defend himself, even if he now looked frightened. Wan lowered his arms. He didn't want to hurt anyone, he just wanted to learn to control water. Shooting fire was a bad idea. He turned to Raava, who was still hovering next to him.

"I'll need the air," he said, and she came racing to him without hesitation. They had swapped the elements so many times before, Wan was getting used to the rush of light, energy and pain that crashed through him every time, but it didn't hurt any less. He managed to stay on his feet as Raava left him, and he tried to regain his focus quickly. The chief was sending another wave to him, much bigger this time. Wan let the wind blow and he propelled himself upwards, out of reach of the wave. He desperatly tried to stay in the air for as long as possible, sending gusts from his hands to blow himself higher everytime he started to go down. As he did so, he made the winds move in a way he had never done before. He no longer payed any attention to things on the ground and only vaguely noticed the chief was no longer trying to throw waves at him (he was getting too high anyway) and all the people on the beach stared up at him. He created a form, a kind of circle of air underneath his feet and the currents were bent so tightly he could almost rest his feet on them, but the most important thing was that he seemed to be able to move in any direction now. He was no longer hovering, he was actually flying. He was so exited he almost forgot about the situation he was in.

Wan looked down and circeled around a few times before he decided he would have to come down at some point. He hoped that the people had noticed he no longer used fire to defend himself. He landed on the beach, just on the shoreline in front of the Lion Turtle. Raava landed next to him. He looked around, to the forest where most of the people were peeking from behind the trees, and to the sea, where the chief still stood on his own. He noticed Liu was there, too, but he had no idea why. She came walking towards him slowly.

"Who _are_ you?" she whispered when she was in front of him. Her gaze wandered to Raava and her eyes widened a bit. Wan sighed heavily. He started to tell her his story again, but he didn't leave anything out this time. Chief Kurik walked closer and listened as Wan told them how he had stolen the fire from his home Lion Turtle and how he got banished. The people trickeled from behind the trees and crossed the beach to gather around Wan as he told of how he'd met Raava and Vaatu and how the Dark Spirit had been set free. He told them how he had met the air people and of the attack of the dark Spirits, and how he had decided to learn all four elements to stand a chance against the Darkness.

When he stopped talking, everyone was quiet and Liu looked at him with her eyes wide, deep and blue like the sky and dispite everyting, Wan could only think of how he could have happily drowned in those eyes if he had been in a different situation, and a different person.

"There's rumors about your quest, small one." a deep voice suddenly boomed. The Lion Turtle was awake. Wan turned to face the animal and it blinked slowly at him.

"So it seems to be of great importance that anyone who can helps you and the Light Spirit." the great animal spoke, and it lifted up one of its mighty paws. Both Wan and Raava moved towards the Turtle, but once again, it was Raava that recieved the element. Wan didn't need to say anything to her. She lifted off the ground and passed through him, taking the air and leaving the water behind. Wan almost fell on one knee and he shivered, but he stood up straight quickly.

Just like air, water felt completely different. It reminded him of small rivers running across the rocks, ever changing course to be able to flow smoothly. It reminded him of the tides as the waves crashed on the shore, in an eternal dance with the currents of the ocean. He looked down to his feet in the water, as the small waves rippled around his ankles. He realized he had no idea where to start with this element. He turned around and looked at the people of the tribe. They were confused and still a bit frightened, but none of them seemed hostile towards him anymore. He noticed Liu looked at him, but here eyes weren't so big anymore and it seemed as if she expected him to do something with the power of water he'd just recieved. He shrugged at her and he must've looked pretty funny for a moment because she was biting her lip to refrain herself from laughing.

"Well," he said. "I'm not sure about this at all, but I have a feeling you know alot more about water than I do."

Now she did smile, and he was happy at least one person wasn't scared of him.

"Stranger," Chief Kurik walked up to him, looking deadly serious but he didn't look agressive in any way anymore. "If what you say is true, and I can only conclude it must be so," he glanced over to Raava and the Lion Turtle as he spoke, "then it looks like we of the tribe have no choice but to help you on your quest."

"Thank you," Wan said. "And I'm sorry about the fire. I really didn't mean any harm."

"So much is clear." Kurik said. He sighed and turned to face his people.

"So this stranger had come to us with concerning news." he spoke. "The great Spirits of Light and Dark will be battling again soon. The outcome of that fight will determine the fate of our world. If we as a tribe wish to keep our way of life as it is, we must do what we can to make sure the Light prevails."

Kurik's words were inspiring and the people didn't give Wan such scared and confused looks anymore. But their eyes were downcast and for a moment, it was as if a shadow fell over the sunlit beach. The future was unsure and darkness seemed to claw at the corners of their vision, but when they looked up to Wan and Raava, the shade that had fallen over their hearts passed like a cloud in front of the sun, and the light returned. There was hope.

"Anyway," Wan said, feeling a bit insecure now. "I'd sure appreciate it if anyone would be willing to teach me some of the basics to control water. I don't really know anything about it."

"Not a problem." Liu answered. The people of the tribe exchanged looks, but Liu smiled and looked determined.

"Very well." Chief Kurik said. "Liu is talented and she often goes of on her own to practice. We didn't think it usefull, but it turns out she was wiser than all of us. I guess it must be a sign of the times we live in." He nodded at Liu encouragingly. Wan smiled at the young woman. For some reason, Liu seemed to blush a little, but she smiled back at him enthousiastically.

– – –

_AN: Hm, this seemed a little bit messy after rereading it. I'll try to solve the plot points (Wan's sudden improvement with air, how the tribe sees him now, etc.) in the next chapter(s). Also, I think I might be having some kind of a romance lurking around the corner. Don't worry too much, though, this is still a fic that centers around Wan and Raava's realtionship. After all, they journeyed and learned together, and faced Vaatu together. But I do believe Wan met other people and he made friends during his travels, so his sort of romance (with Liu, obviously) might turn out to be a close friendship. You'll just have to see where it goes. Anyway, it looks like Wan will be staying with the Water tribe for at least one more chapter. Find out in the next chapter what will happen! I'm having some great ideas, I hope. As always, thank you for reading, following, favouriting and reviewing this story. Don't hesitate to let me know if I'm still doing a good job. See you next time!_


	12. Push and pull

**Chapter 12: Push and pull**

Wan stood in the shallows, wiggling his toes in the sand a bit as small waves rolled over his bare feet. Liu stood a distance away and she was looking at him.

"Try it again," she said, trying to smile encouragingly. "I'm sure you just need to keep practicing."

Wan appreciated her faith in him, but that didn't change anything about the fact he was depressingly bad with the power of water. He could feel the element inside him: sometimes like the whisper of rain, sometimes like the crashing of waves on the shore. Sometimes as quiet as a standing pond, but never still, always changing. The more attention he paid to it, the more confusing it got. It had been five days and he still hadn't managed to produce anything worthwhile, aside from some waves no bigger than the ones that washed over his feet right now. It was trying his patience and while he knew Liu was probably right whenever she ensured him no one was really good at it at first and he would get it eventually, one thought kept nagging at the back of his mind: he didn't have much time to spare. The Harmonic Convergence was still a good ten months away, but he would really need to learn faster if he wanted to have the time left to find an Earth Lion Turtle and learn that element too. In the meantime, he still needed to improve his skill with air as well. He hadn't tried to recreate his flight from days before, having been so focused on learning how to use water.

Luckily, Liu was patient and calm and she didn't seem to think he was bad at all. She had told Wan every day so far he was getting better, even if he didn't see it himself. He had to admit he did feel a bit better about himself every time she told him she was sure he was on the brink of a major breakthrough, even if there wasn't the slightest hint of said breakthrough to be noticed. In the end, he didn't have much choice but to keep trying and hope something would happen.

"I could show you the moves again if you'd like." Liu said. Wan shrugged.

"I don't think the movements are the problem." he answered. "They're not that complicated."

"I know." Liu said. "They're pretty basic, but I think you'll need to get them perfectly right if you want to make any progress. But you're already doing better than the first day."

Because of Wan's expertise with fire and his knowledge of air, he had a good control over his body and movements, so mimicking Liu's motions hadn't been too difficult, even if they were very different from what he did to use the other two elements. For fire, he often used punches and kicks, energetic, dynamic. When he used air, he often felt like he was dancing, light on his feet with lots of twirling and spiraling. Water, on the other hand, required calm, fluid motions. Understanding the differences between the elements was easy enough, but there was something about controlling water that Wan didn't seem to grasp just yet. Liu tried to explain as often and as good as she could, but she was naturally good at it and she had never given much thought to it before.

"You need to let it flow," she said, pulling a portion of the seawater to her and letting it move around her. As usual, Wan had to admit he was impressed by her elegance, as if she had been born with the element already inside her instead of having it been given to her. It reminded him of how he felt about fire when he used it. The urge to just leave the water for what it was for now and go do what he was good at grew stronger than it had before in the past days. But he needed to learn and he would finish what he had started.

Liu showed him once more how to create a wave, which was a basic, relatively simple motion often taught to the children of the tribe on their first day. It involved moving your arms out and back towards yourself, as if trying to pull the water to you. Of course, the children had always watched the adults and most of them understood how to control water even before they had been given the element. Liu assumed Wan was having so much trouble because he came from a completely different place. He had gotten the motion down pretty quickly, but for some reason nothing much happened when he did it, no matter how often he tried it. She admired his persistence, but she could tell he was starting to lose his patience. She had no idea what he was doing wrong.

Wan copied her movements perfectly, this time managing to slightly enlarge an already oncoming wave. His face lit up a bit and he tried it again, but nothing happened this time. He did the motion again, his expression now darkening and Liu started to worry he might lose his temper soon. She didn't know him that well after all, and while he seemed unshakably optimistic most of the time, even the most positive people could lose their upbeat attitude if the odds were against them for long enough. She tried to make him feel better by saying he did alright, but she knew he would only believe it for so long, even if he did seem to be progressing slowly.

Wan did the move again, quicker and sharper than neccesary. He was losing his temper, but he didn't want to admit to it. There was no point in getting angry. The more he tried to stay calm and composed, the more he felt like a boiling kettle about to overheat. He took a few deep breaths and tried to focus solely on the water and what he wanted it to do. He tried to make a wave once more, but nothing happened once again. He let out a frustrated noise, rubbing his palms in his face.

"You should try to..." Liu started, but he cut her sentence off sharply.

"I know what I'm supposed to do!" he snapped. "It's just not working!"

Liu was taken aback abit by his outburst, although she had seen it coming. She walked over to him to put a hand on his shoulder, but he was angrier than she had thought. He pushed her hand away, turned around and stomped back to the beach, not saying a word. She called his name, but he didn't react. She followed after him and caught up while he kicked the sand and seashells out of his way. He glanced to her and mumbled something under his breath.

"Where are you going?" she asked a bit timidly.

"Leave me alone."

"Being angry won't do any good."

"I know." he muttered.

"I'm only trying to help."

"Go away." he said sharply.

"I know how you feel." she said.

"No, you don't." he answered and started to walk faster. She increased her pace too. He waved an arm at her, trying to ward her off.

"Listen," she said. "I really know how frustrating it is to not be good at something everyone else seems to get right. I used to be the worst in the tribe when it came to knots. I'm fine now, but it took me forever to remember them and to get them right."

Wan glanced to her again and he sighed. He didn't say anything, but he slowed his pace and seemed to calm down a bit. They walked to the forest's edge, near the river, and they sat down and let the water wash over their feet. The wind rustled in the trees and leaves fell into the stream.

"I just don't get what I'm doing wrong." Wan said after a while. Liu looked at him and she shrugged.

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure either." she answered. "I've never had to teach anyone, it's usually the older people of the tribe with more experience that teach the kids how to fish and all that."

"It's just so frustrating." he said. "I caught on pretty quickly with air. And I never had any problem with fire, especially not when I still only knew how to shoot flames from my hands, since that's the easy part."

"Well," Liu said while getting up. "Whenever something annoys me that much, I usually go do something else for some time to take my mind of it. It'll be easier to focus when you come back to your problem with a fresh mindset."

"Sounds good." Wan said and he got to his feet as well, but then looked around a bit insecurely.

"So... What do you suppose we could do?" he asked. Liu didn't answer right away, instead playing with the many thin braids in her hair for a bit. Wan gave her a questioning look, but he didn't say anything either and they stood around for a few minutes, unsure what to do and avoiding each other's eyes. They suddenly realized that they barely knew each other, dispite having spent alot of time together for the past days. But that time had been mostly spent practicing and they hadn't talked about much other than the element Wan needed to learn.

"Do you like stories?" Liu blurted out. Wan had opened his mouth too to say something, but he closed it again and shrugged instead.

"Sure, I guess." He thought for a moment. "But I don't think I know any stories." he confessed. Liu smiled.

"That's alright." she said. "I'll tell you one first, then maybe you'll remember one." She went to sit back down by the river and Wan did the same.

"The story I'll tell you now is one of my favorites." Liu said. "It's called the Tale of Tui and La."

"The tale of who?" Wan asked.

"The Moon and Ocean Spirits, of course!" she exclaimed, but she immediatly gave him an apologizing look.

"Sorry." she said. "You didn't grow up in the tribe, so you won't know about them."

"It's fine." he said. "I'm sure you'll tell me who they are exactly."

"Tui is the Moon Spirit and the guardian of our tribe" Liu explained. "La is the Ocean Spirit and our guide as the Lion Turtle travels the seas. He provides the tribe with food and shelter."

Wan nodded and realized humans had many ways of dealing with the Spirits. Where he came from, the Spirits were feared and the people didn't want anything to do with them. In stark contrast, the air people had lived alongside them and had even befriended them, much like he had learned to do after his banishment. The Water tribe seemed to revere certain Spirits, although they still were on their guard. He returned his attention to Liu as she started to tell him the story. She seemed excited and he guessed she not only loved to listen to stories, but tell them as well. She had a knack for getting the mood just right and her voice was pleasant to listen to. He soon had the impression he was inside the story rather than simply listening to it.

"This is the Tale of Tui and La. A long time ago, there was no land for anything to live on. There was just the sea, vast and endless. La the Ocean Spirit was in charge and he roamed the seas, watching carefully over his realm. He was satisfied and nothing changed for an eternity.

But high up in the skies, Tui the Moon Spirit gazed over the oceans and while she loved the sight of the starlit waters, she grew bored of it as time passed. One night, she decided she wanted for something to change. She had studied the sea for so long, she understood it almost as good as La did. She wanted for the waters to do more than reflect her image and that of the stars. She disrupted the surface and the way her reflection got distorted made her laugh. She did it again and she simply loved how the waves sparkled in the starlight and how they shimmered as her beams fell upon them.

But La didn't like the disturbance. He rose from the ocean and scolded Tui for her disruption. He pulled the waters back into place the way he liked it. Tui was saddened and angry and she turned away from the sea and her light did not shine on the waters anymore.

Time passed and La found himself missing Tui's light. He often looked up to the skies and he could tell she was still there, but her backside was dark and she was still angry with him. He realized that he had been too harsh and he wished for her to look upon his realm again. He tried to grab her attention by making the waters wave and sparkle in the starlight like she had done, hoping she would look down to see the beauty. Sure enough, after some time, she peeked behind her just a little bit and her light fell upon the seas once again. The more La tried his best to cheer her up, the more she turned around to look at his efforts. At last, she showed herself completely again and she even started to play along with La.

But dispite wanting Tui around to spread her light over the seas, she was too playfull and wild to La's tastes and he got angry with her again. He pulled the waves back she was pushing and once more, Tui was hurt and she turned her face away. Once more, La regretted his outburst and tried to make her look at him again. Every time, Tui would peek behind her and turn around again and every time, the Spirits played together until La had enough of it and Tui would turn away from him.

The Moon and Ocean Spirits have lived like this for an enternity. Tui pushes the waters and La pulls them back, in an eternal dance for balance. The world has changed and land has risen from the seas and all kinds of creatures emerged, but still Tui and La dance and they will continue to do so until the end of time."

Liu pauzed for a moment, signaling the story was over.

"That was beautifull." Wan said, looking at her dreamily. She smiled and blushed a bit.

"There's dozens of other stories and legends, about other Spirits and about the history of the tribe," she said. "but the Tale of Tui and La is the oldest and the best story, I think."

A silence fell between them again, but it was less awkward than before since they were both lost in thought for a few moments. Wan was trying to remember any kind of story he heard in the past, but he couldn't recall anything, although he was pretty sure there was something. He had the feeling that if he thought about long enough, something would come back to him.

"Well, it's your turn now." Liu said after a while. Wan looked at her and curiosity was written all over her face at the thought of being about to hear a story she had never heard before. He gave her an apoligizing look.

"I can't really remember anything right now." he said. Her face fell a bit, but she didn't seem upset.

"You know," she said. "In the tribe we tell each other stories around the fires at night. When I was little, my mother always told me one before I went to sleep. Aren't there any bedtime stories you remember?"

"I..." Wan cut off his sentence and he felt confused for a moment. Sure, he knew bedtime stories. Tons of them. But it had been so long ago since he last heard one. He suddenly felt a strange mix of emotions and he was lost in them for a moment, unaware of Liu and the concerned look she gave him now.

"Goodness, I'm sorry." she said. "I forgot, you probably haven't seen your family in a long time. I'm really sorry."

"It's fine." Wan heard himself say. He took a deep breath and pushed all the feelings back. He didn't have the time and this wasn't the place for them. He got to his feet and brushed his clothes off a bit. Liu still looked concerned at him.

"Why don't we go practice for a bit more? This was a nice break, but I won't learn anything if I don't do anything." he said.

"Sure," Liu answered. "But are you feeling alright, Wan? I'm sorry if anything I said upset you."

"It's fine, really." he said and smiled, hoping it was convincing enough. She stood up as well and let the subject rest, but he would later catch her looking at him a bit worried from time to time.

They went back to the water and Wan started to do his exercises again. His heart wasn't really in it. He had a hard time concentrating and while he didn't get angry anymore everytime he failed to get the water moving to his will, he didn't make any progress whatsoever. Liu was just as supportive as before, but she seemed to be getting a bit tired of it as well. By the end of the afternoon, they both agreed they would stop for now and continue the day after. Liu walked back to the tribe and Wan turned around to head back to his camp. He had moved it to the beach a couple of days ago, wanting to stay in sight of the tribe so they might see him like less of a threat. He wasn't sure it was working. Aside from Liu, the members of the tribe avoided him as much as possible, as if he didn't exsist. While that was an improvement compared to their previous hostility, it was a bit depressing as well. Then again, he hadn't been around for that long and he hoped they would warm up to him a bit in the future.

Mula was waiting for him and she was so excited to see him she almost knocked him over. Wan scratched behind her ears and while he felt a bit bad for leaving her here while he went of to train, he was glad she didn't seem to mind at all. He noticed Raava was nowhere around. He hadn't seen the Spirit all day and this wasn't the first time she went off somewhere on her own, so he wasn't really worried. She always returned by sunset. He had tried asking her what she did, but he hadn't gotten a straightforward answer out of her so he had given up on trying. If it was important, she would tell him. He guessed she was trying to gather information on Vaatu and how far his influence was spreading. There hadn't been any sign of the Dark Spirit or any turned Spirits since he had left the Air people, so he had no idea how bad things were. He tended to believe things weren't so bad, not just yet, but he knew that was only a matter of time. Still, the beach and the forest were tranquil and one would easily forget the peril the world was in.

Wan sat down and rummaged in his things a bit, looking for any leftovers. He wouldn't have the chance to create a campfire until Raava returned, so he essentially didn't have much to do. He thought about practicing water for a bit, but dimissed the idea since it probably wouldn't do any good in the end. He needed to rest, but for some reason he had a hard time keeping still. He spent the time until sunset pacing around, rearranging his things, petting Mula or staring out over the sea aimlessly. Sometimes, he looked at the people of the tribe as they moved around on the beach in the shade of the Lion Turtle. It would still take some time before they would accept him. He did miss human contact, even with Liu around most of the time. The tribe appeared to him like one big family, sharing everything with each other and helping and protecting one another. He thought back to Liu's story and the conversation they had afterwards, and what he had felt when she mentioned bedtime stories. He angrily kicked a seashell away in front of him as he walked back to his camp. Bedtime stories were for kids, why would he care?

Raava returned just when the sun kissed the horizon. The dying light set the skies ablaze and the water and the beach reflected the bright oranges and yellows. She flew down to Wan's campsite and found him sitting next to Mula, his knees pulled up this chest and his arms around his legs. While she was no expert on humans and especially not their complex range of moods and emotions, she was starting to get to know Wan and she could tell he felt bad about something. She hoped he wasn't angry with her for leaving again. He hadn't been before, so why would he be now? Unless there was another problem. She knew his learning to control water wasn't going smoothly at all, but he hadn't shown any signs he was giving up on it. He wasn't the kind of person to give up on things, she had learned that much about him in the short time they had traveled together. She guessed his problem had to be of a different nature still, but she couldn't tell what it could possibly be.

She settled down next to him and he looked up to her and she didn't think he looked displeased at all, until she started to notice little signs in his body language. Tension in his shoulders, downcast eyes. She shifted her bands a bit, unsure what his problem could be and what she could do to help solve it. She represented light and peace and it was essentially a part of her job to make him feel better. If anything, she would try to do it because of their unlikely but valueable partnership.

"How is your progress with water?" she asked after some time. Wan hadn't said a word so far, which was quite unlike him since he often told her about the events of his day.

"Oh. Same as usual." he answered. "Liu still claims I'll get the hang of it, but I still didn't get the hang of it."

"Maybe tomorrow." Raava said, in an attempt to mimick his postive attitude. He gave her an irritated look and rolled his eyes. If she would've had eyebrows, she would have raised them in surprise. What on earth had gotten into him? She only realized she had spoken her thought out loud when he sighed loudly and got up at last.

"It's nothing." he said. "I just had a rough day. Now I'd just like my fire so I can at least be warm and comfortable for the night." He tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible, but Raava could hear he needed to try to keep a harshness out of his voice. She lifted herself off the ground, preparing to pass through him and give him the element he needed. At the very last moment, she decided to pay close attention during the split second she was inside him. Whenever she did, and it had been like that since the very first time, she got an impression of his being and his emotions. It was only a brief glimpse, she didn't dare to posess him any longer than necessary since her energies hurt him deeply, no matter how many times he assured her he felt fine. During that short moment, she was able to guess his mood, which ranged from optimistic and hopefull, to deadly tired and sometimes frustrated. His frustration had been more prominent as of late, even if she could tell he felt happy about something too.

Raava raced towards Wan as she usually did. While their merging was alot less stressfull for her, she now felt slightly more anxious about it since she didn't want to stay in him for any longer than to swap elements and find out why he was upset. She passed through him and a range of colours and impressions passed by her vision. She found the water and took it, replacing it with the tiny, bright flame that represented fire. Just before she left him, she could sense his mood and it was so different from anything she had felt before, she almost stopped dead in her tracks.

She left him without hesitation nonetheless. He wavered just a bit and immediatly went to create a campfire. She settled down again and started to analyze what she had felt. For reasons she couldn't yet understand, Wan was filled with both a great sadness and a great anger. The sadness seemed to be the stronger emotion and it seemed to run very deep, like an old wound that had never quite healed and was now torn open again. The anger was wrapped around that old sadness like a shell, thick and almost impossible to break through. She had no clue why he felt this way now. She had understood his optimism and hope, his frustration and exhaustion, they had all been explained easily. She guessed something had happened today that made him feel this way.

While she was contemplating, Wan had gotten a fire going and was now sitting in front of it, staring into the flames. It took her some time before she realized he hadn't eaten anything yet.

"You haven't eaten." she said. He looked up to her and shrugged.

"I'm not really hungry." he answered and went back to staring into the fire. She shifted in her spot ever so slightly.

"You seem upset about something." she tried.

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem to be."

He made an angry noise and gave her an irritated look again.

"I don't want to talk about it." he mumbled after some time. Raava shifted a bit again. She wasn't sure what she could do now, but at least she had gotten him to admit he wasn't feeling well. She let the subject rest and they spent the rest of the evening in silence. Wan went to sleep early, but she saw he tossed and turned for hours before his breathing slowed down and he lay still at last. A few hours before sunrise, he suddenly jolted awake, gasping. He went to lay back down quickly, but she was sure he didn't really sleep anymore. As much as she wanted to help him, she knew she would only invoke the anger she had sensed if she tried to push him. It would take some time before he would start to talk about it.

The next morning, Raava sensed Wan still felt that sadness, but it now seemed to be buried deeper and he seemed to have gotten his optimism back. She found it positive that he was talking again, while he was gathering fruit from the trees on the edge of the forest. He told her he was feeling better and that he was sure something would happen today so he could finally start to learn to control water properly. But it seemed to her he was wrong to pretend everything was fine.

– – –

"Not bad." Liu said. Wan sighed and lowered his arms.

"I won't get anywhere by the end of the year at this rate." he said. Liu opened her mouth but he waved an arm at her.

"I know, I'll be fine as long as I keep trying." She raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

Another week had passed and Wan's practice finally seemed to start to pay off. He was now alot more consistent in being able to produce waves and while they were still small, he hadn't let one slip out of his control for two days now. He was starting to believe he was in fact slowly improving and while that was a positive thought, he knew he still had a long way to go before he would be any good. He wasn't running out of time yet, but he didn't want to spend more time learning water than necessary. Now that he was getting better, he had the feeling there still was something he didn't grasp well enough if he truly wanted to understand this element.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He could feel the power water flow inside him, seemingly following the same rhythm of the small waves that washed over his feet. That somehow seemed important. He focused solely on that rythm and he felt closer than ever to revealing whatever secret water still had for him. But he still felt unsure what he was looking for exactly. He opened his eyes again and looked at Liu.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Of course," she said. "Anything to help you progress."

"Is it weird if I say that it feels like the water inside me seems to follow the water outside me?"

Liu blinked a few times. She pondered Wan's words for a moment, winding a braid around her finger and staring into the sea.

"No," she said at last. "That makes alot of sense, actually. I never thought about it like that before."

"Great." Wan said. "I think I'm finally starting to understand this."

Liu slowly shook her head.

"No wonder I couldn't teach you all that much." she said, suddenly a bit downcast. "I never realized you need to understand that certain rythm if you want to be any good at controlling water. I just sort of had it in me from the start." She sighed.

"Don't worry about it." Wan said. "I'm sure you still taught me more than I wouldn've figured out on my own."

Liu's eyes lit up as she smiled at him and it warmed his heart. Sometimes, he almost didn't mind so much he was so slow with learning water, because it meant he could spend more time with her. She was fun to be with, even if they did little else but practise. Whenever they took a break, Liu told him more stories and legends and she tried to introduce him to the tribe, even if most people still seemed nervous, they did seem to get used to him bit by bit. Wan tried to ignore the fact he would have to leave someday as much as possible. For now, he would enjoy friendship and relative peace for as long as it lasted.

"Try again." Liu said and Wan set his feet apart, raising his arms slowly. He concentrated on his breathing, much like he did when he used fire, but instead he tried to find the water's rhythm and tried to synchronise with it. As he did so, he started to feel connected to it in a way he hadn't felt before. He realized controlling water was thinking of it in the wrong terms. You didn't need to control it as much as you needed to understand how it worked in order to let it flow with you. All these things went through his mind at the same time and he finished the motion. The wave he pulled towards him was high enough to wash over his knees.

"Fantastic!" he heard Liu exclaim enthusiastically and he was quite amazed by himself.

"That was definatly an improvement." he said and he created another wave of about the same size. He couldn't help the wide grin spreading across his face. Dispite everything, he had the feeling things were looking good and he could easily forget about his frustrations of the past days. In the end, understanding how water worked wasn't any harder or easier than understanding how fire and air worked. You just needed to time to get to know it.

– – –

_AN: yes, I'm aware I took forever to update. But I've been very busy around the holidays and to be honest, I started to rewrite this chapter a few times before I was finally a bit satisfied with it. I tried to explore more into Wan's relationship with both Liu and Raava, his own past, and I tried to put in some lore and philosophy of the Water tribe. I hope you've enjoyed this and I will try to update sooner next time. _

_By the way, I've published a new fic last week titled 'In the mists of memories'. It's a oneshot that revolves around Aang and a visit he makes to the statue chamber in the Southern Airtemple (you know, the one with all the statues of the past Avatars, we see Jinora visit that chamber as well in Legend of Korra) some time after defeating Fire Lord Ozai. I'm quite fond of it and I think it's worth the read._

_Thanks for reading and I wish you all the best for the new year!_


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